Toronto Star Referrer

Sorry, but no one gets to own our flag

STEPHEN MARCHE STEPHEN MARCHE IS THE AUTHOR OF “THE NEXT CIVIL WAR.”

The past year has transformed the meaning of our national symbol more than any time since the 1960s. When the Trucker Convoy arrived in my neighbourhood, and I saw their negligible crowds with their sad croaking slogans and massive intimidating machines, the fact that they wrapped themselves in the flag didn’t bother me much.

Their patriotism was so obviously just a cover for a generalized rage. Theirs is the old, old story: Patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel. Far more troubling to me, shocking even, was when I saw a tiny little Maple Leaf hovering over the crowd at an imitation trucker rally in New Zealand. The Maple Leaf had morphed, at least in some diseased part of the international populist movement, into shorthand for the most un-Canadian feeling of all time: the desire to break the rules for the sake of breaking the rules.

The Truckers, of course, do not get to own our national symbol just because they wrapped themselves in it. National symbols, like countries themselves, change over time but retain deeper connections over and above and below transitory events.

The biggest Canadian flag I personally have ever seen was at Juno Beach in Normandy. It must have been four or five storeys high. Canadians hadn’t put up that flag. The French had, out of gratitude. They raised it to celebrate our national sacrifice in the liberation of Europe. The symbol represented, in that context, the men and women who gave their lives out of a sense of duty. It’s easy to scream “freedom” on a street corner in Ottawa. Nobody forms mobs to shout “duty.”

The Maple Leaf, as we know it today, was raised by Lester Pearson in 1965. In his speech marking the occasion, he hoped that the flag would come to represent a country “fair and generous in all its dealings; sensitive, tolerant and compassionate towards all.” Despite our plentiful hypocrisies, the Maple Leaf came to have that significance. It’s a cliché because it’s true: Travellers everywhere in the world, not all of whom were Canadian, wore this little red leaf in little pins and patches as amulets of protection. Who would want to pick a fight with a Canadian? The pins and patches were statements: We are in many ways like Americans, but we are not Americans, and we are not responsible for America. The symbol was a way of capitalizing on our reputation, however incorrectly won, for politeness and gentleness.

Those legacies — men and women who lived up to their duties and a general national tendency to tolerance — are real; they are substantial; they are deep. And that depth and that substance means that ultimately the Trucker Convoy won’t alter the meaning of the Maple Leaf, despite its appearance among New Zealand rageaholics. The Trucker Convoy was not essentially Canadian in fact and in principle. Prominent leaders of the trucker convoy explicitly asked for their “first amendment” rights to be respected. The largest sign I ever saw supporting the Trucker Convoy was in West Virginia.

But what was most glaringly unCanadian about the Trucker Convoy was the garish display of the flag itself. As a symbol, the Maple Leaf has always been an exercise in restraint. In a way, a big red leaf makes sense. Canada’s glory is its natural splendour, although I do wonder why they chose a dead (red) leaf rather than a living (green) one. The Maple Leaf has no story behind it, like the Irish Harp or the Star of David. It unites a country that doesn’t have a lot of reasons for unity by being content free.

You don’t need to have a dozen flags hanging off your truck to show you love this country; that’s one of the best things about it. Maybe that’s why the people who understand what the Maple Leaf stands for take it out for display only rarely. You don’t take out a treasured heirloom to show off on the street. That’s only for people who don’t know what it’s worth.

CANADA DAY

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2022-07-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-07-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

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