When you turn the television on and see a debate in parliament you will sometimes laugh, sometimes you might get annoyed, and sometimes you will just change the channel. Yet, do you ever stop and ask yourself what Canada’s parliament actually is? Where did it come from?
This institution which graces our nation, believe it or not, is a British invention, which has been given to English-speaking peoples across the world as a means of proper democratic representation. The Queen’s portrait still hangs in some of our classrooms next to our prime minister. As far as 1763, the territories that form the Canada of today were owned by Britain. The very foundation of governance, values, and democracy have arrived on these shores from Britain.
Yet there is a distinct forgetfulness, or even dejection, among people when you bring up the Canadian flag prior to 1965. Individuals tend to act as if Canada had never existed before that “momentous” event and that somehow, because we changed a logo and some colors, we became independent. The asininity shown by people’s love for mere aesthetics is in itself evidence of the collective foolishness that plagues our society, going back as far as 1965.
To see the British colors on what was once Canada’s prestigious flag is seen by some today as a complete “surrender” of some sort, almost as if they are unaware that Elizabeth the II is our Queen, and that when new citizens are sworn in, as I was once, they swear their oath to this country and to her.
It seems that they believe that mere aesthetics will prove our independence, not actions. As if the change to some new colors once symbolized freedom, not the events in which our country participated. Freedom from who you ask? Ironically, from the people who thought this nation the meaning of democracy-stable, and constant.
Individuals forget that it was under the old Canadian flags that men died at Vimy, at Juno, and it was under the old flag that peace was kept at Suez, and dozens of places around the world. Some of our provinces still proudly display Britain’s old colors, acknowledging that we are not in fact a new nation, but one that is far older, and much more rooted in a mother country.
When an average person thinks of Canada in the present age, the Maple leaf pops into their head, instead of Confederation, also the color red and white shear across their eyes, not the men that fought at Passchendaele. This is the world in which symbols rule, not reality.
You might ask why someone who has no British ancestry in his background even be concerned with such details. I can only respond that you are right, maybe I should not be, yet I am allowed to live in liberty, free from coercion, as a result of the institutions, ideals, and values of the mother-country from which this nation owes its roots to. In no place around the world has there been such acceptance of others as in the English speaking countries.
Even the old flag, was just a flag, a symbol really, but it did not represent a nation, just like how today the Red Maple Leaf does not represent Canada. This nation is rather characterized by its actions, by its position in the world, and the individuals whose freedoms they owe to a small island across the Atlantic.
