The Man Who Loved Islands

Another lovely island. © 2002 Michael R. Barrick

The Canadian Flag

The Canadian flag. And very Canadian it is. While other countries flags are steeped in history, our is steeped in separatist politics and bungling politicians. This flag was designed in 1965 to replace the official use of the Union Jack and the unofficial use of the Red Ensign (a red field with a Union Jack in the upper right quadrant and the coat of arm of Canada in the lower left quadrant) as the inherit Britishness of these flags didn't sit well with the Québecois. Rather ineptly it was proposed in parliament that a uniquely Canadian flag that both Anglophones and Francophones could rally around would help stem the (regularly scheduled) tide of separatism in Quebec. And an excellent flag was proposed: a red maple leaf centred on a white field, bounded by blue bars, representing Canada (the red maple leaf), the north (the white field), stretching from Atlantic to Pacific (the blue bars). But complaints were raised during the parliamentary debate over the design that the white, red and blue design was too much like the blue, white and red of the Union Jack and the red, white and blue of the dreaded Americans, allusions to either of which was not going to win any support in Quebec. Changing the leaf to blue was out of the question because the Québecois were already beginning to rally around the old pre-revolutionary blue and white French royal flag (which remains the provincial flag of Quebec). The "only" other option was to change the oceans to red. Why? Because the maple leaf *had* to stay red in deference to Red Ensign, which ultimately remained a nod to the British Loyalists (remember that the British uniform, before the days of camouflage was red... "the thin red line", "the redcoats are coming" and all that...) which was necessary to get the design past the old fuddy-duddies in the Senate. Getting the flag through, at the expense of the unifying symbolism that was supposed to be the point won the day. It never occurred to anyone, apparently, that the whole point of the flag was being subverted and that it would have been a much better flag if the leaf had been changed to green and the water left blue. But that is Canadian politics. In the end we ended up with a largely meaningless flag that the old British Loyalists aren't fond of and now, nearly 40 years later you still see a lot of Union Jacks (although the Maple Leaf does seem to have gained in the last 5-10 years as the people who were born under it tend to be more fond of it). The Québecois see it as an Anglophone flag as much as the Union Jack or Red Ensign and fly the Fleur de Lis as a "national" flag, typically insisting that it fly at the same height as the Maple Leaf rather than lower as would be befitting a provincial flag.

The British Columbian Flag

The flag of British Columbia. Here we have a very nice example of British colonialism in one of the few examples of a colonial flag that was not given royal assent on the first go around. The loyalty expressed in the symbolism of the Union Jack with the crown in the centre is pretty clear, as the is the rather obvious symbolism of the setting sun for this westernmost British North American colony. What is fun and funny about this design is if you were to visit the legislature buildings in Victoria, the provincial capitol, you would see this design carved in stone and set in cast iron thoughout the building with the serring sun in the upper half of the flag and the Union Jack in the lower half. This was the original design that was sent of for royal assent, which is typically a rubber-stamp process, so much so that there was no hesitation to commit the design to stone and iron while the approval was pending. Well, the original design was sent back with the Union Jack and setting sun rearranged in the positions you see them with the notation that "The sun never sets over the British Empire" !!