Anti-vaxxers are stealing our flag. Let’s take it back & More News Here

It wasn’t that way back the Maple Leaf flag was a principally inoffensive, and infrequently inspiring, image of Canadian nationwide pleasure.

Yes, it was additionally an emblem of our colonial previous and the ache that continues to inflict on Indigenous Peoples — there’s been a welcome push in recent times to deal with Canada Day as a chance to replicate and keep in mind in addition to revel. But there was a transparent distinction between the patriotism our nationwide flag impressed and the extra boisterous and aggressive model that prevails south of the border.

But as with many different issues, the pandemic — and particularly the anti-democracy convoy that descended on Ottawa earlier this 12 months to protest public well being measures — has modified our flag’s that means and message for tens of millions of Canadians.

This 12 months, after they see giant crowds of individuals or automobiles waving the Maple Leaf, they’ll have good trigger to marvel which model of Canada these folks are truly celebrating. Is it the one which champions variety, respects distinction and values the frequent good? Or is it the one which prioritizes particular person freedom and private liberty, attacking anybody and something that will get in the best way of that?

As London, Ont., resident Blaine Chalk informed The Canadian Press, “It’s getting a connotation of: People who are the loudest are always the ones waving the flag.”

The Canadian flag is not any stranger to controversy. In the lead-up to its creation practically 60 years in the past, John Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservatives fought bitterly towards the Pearson authorities’s marketing campaign to exchange the Red Ensign, Canada’s colonial flag. He insisted the flag honour Canada’s “founding races” (a time period that referred to English and French Canadians, excluding Indigenous Peoples and immigrants), and the controversy that ensued over it was described by historian Rick Archbold as “among the ugliest in the House of Commons history.”

In newer years, it’s been the topic of scrutiny from the opposite aspect of the ideological spectrum, as progressives have rightly interrogated its inextricable affiliation with Canada’s colonial roots and the abuses that proceed to echo into the current. Far from being an emblem of freedom and empowerment, for many individuals, it was — and is — emblematic of the continuing oppression and violence towards First Peoples in Canada.

What folks are studying

In a approach, the anti-vaccine convoy is doing the remainder of us a favour by hugging the flag so aggressively. They’re providing up a really seen reminder of how harmful reflexive nationalism could be, and prompting some much-needed reflection about our personal previous and the way it has impacted totally different teams of individuals. We can take this chance to dig deeper and do a greater job of understanding the total historical past that we share.

But for all of Canada’s warts, the Maple Leaf and the circumstances by which it was created are a personification of our higher qualities as a rustic. It was the product of compromises made by a democratically elected minority Parliament, not an emblem of unbridled defiance or revolutionary freedom.

And it’s been that spirit of co-operation and mutual profit that helped pull us by the COVID-19 pandemic in higher form than extra individualistic nations and cultures. If we’re going to outlive the challenges that lie forward, from local weather change and different potential pandemics to the unfold of authoritarian populism, we’ll want to attract on that spirit as typically as attainable.

Now, greater than ever, we want issues that pull us out of our self-imposed silos and create a way of shared understanding and id. We want symbols that encourage us to have a good time what we have now in frequent as Canadian residents, not double down on our variations. We want issues we will rally round collectively with a purpose to create a way of frequent function and shared profit that’s larger than our personal narrowly drawn self-interest.

We want a way of nationwide pleasure that isn’t polluted by the poisonous politics of the so-called “freedom” motion and its allergy to information and cause. And we have to keep in mind that it’s nonetheless our flag, not theirs.