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Episode 7 - The Flag so Good We Made It Our Goo
41 Plays2 months ago
Canada is a country that often struggles with its identity and yet somehow through compromise managed to adopt a flag of its own free from the symbols of its mother country. Did you know that we (sort of) shared a flag with the Americans? Or that Alberta is loosely responsible for a modern-day Canadian symbol? Or how about how we tried to do what the Americans did with their flag except somehow worse?
This episode's news:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-65-adopted-law-evictions-1.7226647
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-housing-bill-evictions-1.7211070
Heritage Minute:
https://www.historicacanada.ca/productions/minutes/flags
If you want to see other flags:
https://www.gg.ca/en/heraldry/public-register?search_api_views_fulltext=proposed&r_id=&sort_by=search_api_relevance&sort_order=DESC&items_per_page=12&page=1
https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/flags-canada-historical/posters.html
Shawinigan Moments is written and recorded on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Stó:lō (Stolo), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) first nations in what is otherwise called Vancouver.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
I have no faith in the Canucks, so I have no dog in the and in that fight. We'll come up when we talk about hockey, and but I guess this might be in the cold opening anyway, but like I haven't cared about hockey since 2011. I should say, I haven't cared about men's hockey since 2011. I fucking love the PWHL. And I hope that whenever they do expand beyond, I think it's what, six teams, that they introduce a team to Vancouver. because like I don't know who the hell the cheer for. I'm just cheering for everybody because it's just freaking amazing that we have a professional women's hockey league. And, you know, they're selling out games, they broadcast their games on I think I was on Twitch and YouTube, I believe is maybe it's just on YouTube. But like accessibility to watch these games is really good. Whereas like I don't have cable TV. So if I want to watch a Canucks game or any NHL game, I either have to like, you know, pirate a stream online because I'm not paying for any sports services.
00:00:52
Speaker
Or I have to go to the bar, and I'm i'm not like above going to the bar, but like I don't want to go to the bar all the time just to watch sports. The only sport I care to watch in the bar is curling. Curling is kind of the ideal bar sport, and ironically. Curling is an amazing game, and I kind of wish I got more into it. like It's the only sport during the 2010 Winter Olympics I bothered to attend. I didn't attend any, but also I was fuck off poor in 2010.
00:01:19
Speaker
Fuck off what? Fuck off porn. Oh, I thought you said fuck off porn. And I was like, I'm so sorry. This is this is what I get for being hearing impaired.
00:01:34
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Schwinnegan Moments podcast. My name is Heather. I use she and they pronouns. My name is Tamarack. I use they them or it its pronouns. So this episode we're not going to be doing anything sweet. No. Well, sort of. I have, I have a sweet news item for you, but nothing sweet. Do we just want to launch right into the news? We can launch right into the news if you don't have any more ramblings. No, I don't want to talk about um anything else.
00:02:11
Speaker
Tamarack's getting political on you. Sorry. OK. Some good news out of Quebec. We're being thrown scraps. Yay, scraps. Is capitalism finally working out for us? No, but red control policy sure as fuck are. It's almost like we should have more of them. This was a little bit towards the end of last month. There was a bill that was going to ban certain types of evictions for the next three years, or until vacancy rate in provinces, urban centers reached 3%, which they're not gonna. So the basics are that ah evictions were banned for basically like remodeling, resizing, subdividing, or changing the use of rental properties.
00:02:57
Speaker
i Those would all evictions for those reasons would just there'd be a moratorium on them province-wide and Today it passed it's long now you can't be renovated out of your two-bedroom apartment because it's gonna be so it's gonna be rented out as two one-bedroom rooms and This is rather surprising to hear come out of Quebec because um the CAQ, the Coalition of Ennier Quebec, the CAQ, they're formerly a party of Quebecois and they're kind of center right. So it's a little bit interesting to see that they're doing something that I would expect out of the NDP. Yeah, I would have maybe thought that maybe like ah
00:03:41
Speaker
like Montreal City Council would have maybe done this as some sort of city bylaw or something, but like to have this province wide is fantastic. Yeah, this is this is incredible news. like Yeah, this is unexpected to see come out of there, but like the the thing about rent in Quebec, especially in Montreal, is that it's very different from the rest of the country. like How it's handled there is that like they've famously had rent control in Montreal for a very long time, haven't they? oh Yes, that's why you can still get like a place in for done for like around a thousand a month Is it like a two-bedroom you can get for like a thousand but but no so so it's a Even then even still like a thousand a month for a one-bedroom would be like a real freakin bargain in Vancouver myself 700 square feet for 1900 so not a thousand a month That's still cheaper than what I currently pay because I have about the same square footage 1650 over here
00:04:39
Speaker
No, I'm paying 2,400 for my similar size apartment. Oh, yeah, I'm just I'm looking at I'm looking at rants Okay, so yeah, like you you can still get a one-bedroom place for like 1500 a month like under 2,000 a month. That's considered a bargain in Vancouver Yeah, that's um like if you if you had that in Vancouver, you would be unable to leave because of the financial strain of just the rent increase from jumping. Well, yeah, part of the reason why I don't have any desire to move my from my East Vancouver apartment is ah there's no reason for me to do so. If I were to move into a new place that especially accepts cats, um I'm probably looking at paying about the same amount for something smaller, whereas if I stay put,
00:05:24
Speaker
Yeah, the rent's going to go up about 4% per year for whatever the government decides to do, but you know I get to have a fairly large place and I don't have to worry about my cat. Yeah, like Quebec housing policy, particularly in Montreal, is ah is an example of why rent control is important and why it works. Yeah. and so Before anyone says, oh, how come you haven't bought? I tried to buy three years ago when the market permitted me to do so. But um when i to kind of give you an idea, if you're wondering like how stupid the Vancouver housing market was ah back in just a few years ago, I tried to buy a place. I put $50,000 over asking and I got up bid by $75,000.
00:06:08
Speaker
Yeah, people, when interest rates were really low, people were just snapping up places left, right and center. And to be fair, so was, you know, so was I, but like the thing that kind of made me upset to find out afterwards, a place that was well within my price range and something that I could even afford with, you know, with interest rate hikes that came immediately after, which of course yesterday they lowered interest rates by 0.25%. I still would have been able to afford it. That's the ridiculous thing in all this. Like, I had the money to go do it. Now, if I go and try to buy a similar place in the same neighborhood, I'm probably looking at about 20% more. And that's that's just before I go and do the, I better outbid because some asshole is going to go and outbid me and they're going to turn this into another rental property, which again, this unit, from what I understand, ended up being rented out afterward, which made me incredibly pissed off.
00:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's the that was like during the early pandemic when I was also looking for a place to stabilize my housing situation. It was the same thing. like You would put in an offer on a place that's like, oh, you got outbid by like tens of thousands of dollars. It's like, well, what the fuck? yeah What use is asking price then? And that's kind of the reason why I don't really want to leave this place because this is purpose built rental and it's been built in the past 20 some odd years. Whereas um if I was to pay about the same amount to get something equivalent in size, I'd probably be living in something that's 50 years old and doesn't have anything like sprinklers, which I would rather have, especially in like those three story buildings that seem to go on fire every few months.
00:07:36
Speaker
are fine, at least they're not leaky condos. You know, what's funny is that there is the building that is on Broadway in Nanaimo in East Vancouver is finally like getting work done on it. And that was like the poster child for leaky condos. At some point, I feel like you and I should talk about leaky condos as a topic on a future bonus episode. I know I'm saying, oh, you can't suggest bonus episodes, but I think it's one might be fun to talk about at some point. I think that's one to bring on a guest ah because I do know an abatement inspector. He blurted out to me that all all condos are leaky condos. well without getting to because Without turning this into a leaky condo discussion, um the quality of housing stock, especially in Vancouver, is really poor because well they try to make these buildings that are meant for California and Metro Vancouver famously you know located near
00:08:31
Speaker
Um, a temperate rainforest, whereas out in Montreal, the buildings have stand at the test of time because they're made out of materials that can take, you know, a Montreal winter. Yes. They're built for the environment. And the sad thing is, is that the previous kind of cheap condo, the like timber frame, stucco exterior, three story walk-ups that you see all over kits are perfectly adequate for the climate. But instead we have buildings that have fucking casement windows that you can't put air conditioning and it's on. Yeah, well, okay, to be fair, the 1970s climate when they were built, they were perfectly adequate. They weren't, ah much like our maple syrup production industry ah constructed for the climate change of the future.
00:09:17
Speaker
right Anyway, yeah, this is this is amazing. ah It's amazing in the sense that this is a fantastic start, but already Quebec is kind of on its way to ah enshrining housing as a human right. That's a thing that both opposition parties have been rattling on for ages. So it's in entirely possible that you might start seeing them you might start seeing things like you see in the seniors protections that were also included with the passage of this bill, or expanded upon with the passage of of this bill. You might start seeing that stuff extend to all citizens and that would be fucking amazing.
00:09:57
Speaker
well I will close this segment off by saying landlords are are not job creators. They are um vampires on society. Even the economists, and I believe the Guardian have written articles very recently, those Financial Times, excuse me, have art written articles recently saying that they ah contribute nothing and take away from the spending power that actually makes ah economies do well. So if you think that being a landlord is an okay thing to do, you are wrong. And if you hate that, you can direct your hate mail to ah justin.trudo at parl.gc.ca because we don't care about the emails. ah Or if you have if you ah have any further questions, ah mao.zedong at cpp dot.cn or cpp.cn. Is that a valid email? Mao Zedong will personally reply to that email.
00:10:51
Speaker
It'll be you like a Chinese chat GPT that replies back. I was going to say is his reply will come will come at about 1950 feet per second and will be calivered in 7.62 by 39 millimeters. Was that the news? That was the news. All right. So Tamarack, the subject, the flags and the hammer and sickle. What do you think of flags? Uh, in this house, we, uh, we, we kneel for the cross, uh, the hammer and sickle and we stand for the flag, the trans flag, the Philly pride flag personally, but and okay. Yeah. The Philly pride and the pride progress flag is is really good.
00:11:35
Speaker
Is there one design here that the whole committee can agree on that says Canada? No mistake about it. I wonder. I wonder. Prime Minister and Mr. Diefenbaker, I was just talking about you. Are we ah we all going to the same party? Amazingly, John Mathis, an MP, would achieve the unanimity he sought.
00:12:00
Speaker
So that was a clip from historical Canada's bit on flag and I'm going to put a pin in when they said what they say unanimously because sort of sort of sort of they really couldn't decide like what no no no no that word unanimous is carrying a lot of weight and I will get into why But first, let's get a little small background behind the concept of flags because they're relatively modern invention. As a concept, proto flags date back to ancient China, like a lot of things, around 1100 BCE. The Jiaon Dynasty was recorded as having a white banner. Chinese emperors were often buried with these prototypical flags, it turns out. Vexaloids would, however, be common before flags in places like the Roman Empire and Egypt.
00:12:53
Speaker
These were often staffs with some sort of symbol on the top often an animal while they became less common. And actually, this will be in the YouTube, but they give me an idea here. I have a photo here. that So Tamara can see um you have a staff and you would have like maybe like a tassel on the bottom. And then you would have like a symbol representing an animal or you would have maybe feathers from an animal, like various different objects so you know representing something about your village or, I don't know, like your division of the military. Even the concept of like unit markings and demarcation weren't really things for a while. Armies were sort of very like uniform apart from like auxiliary forces, which were sort of guys who did a thing
00:13:41
Speaker
So you didn't really need a unit marking for like your, you know, horsemen from gall because they're, they' they're, they're, they're gall people on horses. Yeah. Sort of self evident. I think one of the things that starts to develop is that as I want to say like an equalization between people starts to occur in terms of like, you know, What their that they have horses and that sort of thing that starts to become very common across those, you know, across all sorts of societies, there was a need to kind of differentiate between you know what group was what or whatever right and it's also like a symbol of power, you know, like we're were the hawk carrying group from Alexandria. While they became less common, these vexilloids, as time progressed, modern examples included an eagle on a staff employed by the Grand Armée during the Napoleonic era, as well as unfortunately a staff with an eagle and a swastika on the top representing the Nazi SS.
00:14:39
Speaker
Going back to proto flags, the Roman Empire made use of what was known as a standard, which were flag-like symbols representing their armies. However, while there was something similar for Roman emperors, they were called laborems. which survived in some fashion within Christian churches, notably the Roman Catholic and Orthodox ones, something I'm actually rather familiar with. A variation of the standard tradition survived through medieval Italian communes in the form of a gonfalon. I don't really speak Italian, so I'm pretty certain this gonfalon is probably the right term. And there's also the Korug, which is similar but often seen in Slavic regions of Europe as well as Finland. Are you looking at the pronunciation?
00:15:20
Speaker
Uh, no, I'm looking up to remember what these are. Uh, fun fact, listeners, I have a Fantasia. I cannot picture things. Yeah. This is, this is probably one of the most photo heavy notes I've ever made. And it's also because when Tamarack goes and makes a YouTube version, whenever this comes out, uh, you'll actually get to see what we're talking about. We're not a podcast about slides, but at the very same time, I'd rather. Oh, this is kind of gonna be. It's going to be a hard episode for people who can't visualize what they are. ah We'll do our best to describe the flags as we get closer to them. However, h the concept of a flag representing a country did not really exist until the 16th century, when during the Dutch War of Independence, the Princeton flag or Prince's flag representing Prince William of Orange, Nassau,
00:16:08
Speaker
would later evolve into the 17th century's statin flag, or state's flag, which was then and still is now a tree color with red, white, and blue stripes in descending order in horizontal fashion. However, the original flag was sub substituted the red for an orange color and was adopted to appease the English government as the color orange was associated with the House of Stewart. Oh, the original flag was orange, but the English government said, hey, orange is the house Stewart's color. This is an appeasement thing. Not the fucking house of oranges color. No, no, it was not the house of oranges color. It's kind of annoying. However, this became red because the states of Zealand objected to its use ah to represent the Dutch Republic. And so the color orange became into being red and remain constant even when the Netherlands became a monarchy in the 19th century.
00:17:00
Speaker
I have a feeling that I might be screwing up the colors here, admittedly, um based on my note. But just just to note that like there's been two versions of the Dutch flag originally had orange on the top and then eventually became red on the bottom. But if you want to see a more modern example of this color being used, I believe it's the flag of New York that actually has of New York City. Because even old New York was once New Amsterdam. Why'd they change it? I can't say. People just like it better that way. yeah Sorry, New York City's flag uses the same orange. just that's and That's because of its Dutch origins. So the blue was slightly altered towards more navy color in 1937 when it was codified in law. Just in time for their country to not be in need of a flag.
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah, well, things were going really well with the Netherlands starting in 1939. The flags representing boats and ships did, however, predate the concept of a country flag as maritime flags existed in practice as early as ancient Greece. While examples from Italy and England show these flags and use as early as the 13th century, it wasn't until the 17th century did it become common practice for flags to represent a ship's national origin. Going back to the Dutch flag, you may have noticed that the flag of the Russian Federation is rather similar. There are two different accounts with one I favor being where Peter the Great was interested in how the Dutch were engaging in the shipbuilding. And when he received a frigate from Amsterdam in 1693, it arrived with a Dutch flag on its stern. Peter decided to model Russia's naval flag by merely rearranging the colors, white on top, blue in the middle, and red on bottom. I believe that's the order. And through time, it became the national flag of that country. So for a while, it was just the hammer and sickle. But it went when Russia became its own country separate from the USSR, I'm going to talk about the Union Jack now, because the Union Jack is probably i'm up there in terms of like very infamous flags of that and the American flag, which we're not really going to talk too much about in this episode. I think only the Union Jack and like the Soviet like ah SSR flags have the same like This is the motif we are going with, and here's a billion remixes of it going on for them. Well, this is this is what this whole fucking episode is going to be about. um Oh, yeah. In 1606, noted Catholic tolerator, King James VI.
00:19:16
Speaker
he was He was a very, he was very tolerating of the Catholics. He was shared monarch of both England and Scotland. He introduced a national flag to tie together the two kingdoms for ships originating from them. It combined the cross of St. George, which is depicted in a red on white background, basically a cross with the cross celtier. Think of a cross rotated by 45 degrees of St. Andrew depicted with white on a blue or Azure background. This remained this way for about two centuries until 1801. It was codified by King George III of the United Kingdom when it was augmented with a second cross-cell tier colored in the same color as the cross of St. George and at extraneous borders removed. And that's how we ended up with the modern-day Union Jack.
00:20:06
Speaker
Which is slightly off kilter and it drives me nuts every time I see it. So funny thing about this that I'm going again, this was not a thing that was happening when I was writing these notes. So um the United Kingdom or rather Rishi Sunak, a very damp Rishi Sunak called an election recently. And in one of the campaign videos, they showed um the Union Jack being flown, but they were flying it upside down. And if you were to think of a Union Jack in your head, you'd be like, that's not possible. But actually it is because yeah the all the angles of the ah lines are like set in a way that you could tell.
00:20:42
Speaker
Yes, it is set in a way to maximally tilt people with OCD. It's it's it's I actually don't okay from Ignoring the fact that I'm also Irish. I don't actually hate the Union Jack from a flag standpoint personally again. It's the it's the it's the lack of symmetry in all axes despite the fact that it is on paper a symmetrical design that drives me nuts and Oh, I know. it's I personally don't. Like I said, like it's if you can easily fly it upside down if you didn't know what you're looking at. The flag has remained unchanged despite calls to have Welsh representation placed on ever since ah Wales alongside with the other countries of the UK were devolved from England in the late 1960s. I will say that the Welsh flag is the coolest of the UK. It's true. Every flag needs a dragon on it. It's the only way to improve the Newfoundland flag, for instance.
00:21:35
Speaker
I actually don't even know how you would incorporate the Welsh Dragon into the Union Jack. I feel like it would just not work. Well get rid of all these worthless crosses that are unsymmetrical anyway. Put the Welsh Dragon in the middle. I was just breaking apart the UK because like that's what they were doing with Brexit anyway. Yeah, that's true. On another note, the official flag for Northern Ireland is actually the Union flag. Although from 1953 to 1973, the Ulster Batter flag was used by the Northern Irish government. It reverted back to the Union flag then and was codified in the Good Friday Agreement as being the correct flag for Northern Ireland. And of course, Northern Ireland has been a resolved issue for nearly three decades.
00:22:15
Speaker
Yeah, certainly hasn't been kicked up by any recent events. I always sit tell people it's like, no matter what the outcome is, half the place is going to be unhappy with some aspects of it. So you may as well just go with the Good Friday Agreement. The Good Friday Agreement is a miracle. Just putting that out there. ah See, I'm an anarchist, so I want the least amount of countries. So if you're going to act to better going back to flying it upside down. Um, when I mentioned the UK Tories, um, I know that the UK has been a complete shit show since I don't know Brexit, but honestly, the country really showed that it was going to shit when the spice girls got back together for the London Olympics. ah And I love the spice girls. I must put that out there. I really do like the spice girls.
00:22:57
Speaker
Honestly, yeah, their songs still slap. I was i was doing a show um on the weekend and there was an entire act done to the Spice Girls. um I was not part of it, but it was like eight minutes of Spice Girls music and it was a fucking riot. Now you've heard me say Union Flag, but why is it also called Union Jack? Officially, according to the UK Parliament, Jack is an abbreviation of Jacobus, the Latin version of James. This one's kind of iffy because the word Jack may also date back to Middle German in reference to Flagstaffs, and it also could be in reference to a ship's flag being smaller than its ensign to be used as a signal or identification. i
00:23:40
Speaker
believe the middle German just because it was probably colloquialized by sailors who would have been of the lower class who probably would have absorbed that colloquialism. I'm going to agree with you like one of the things about the UK in respect to a lot of things is like the use of English in the UK as a whole is a relatively modern phenomenon especially in government and it wasn't it used to be that French was the language of the monarchy and the aristocracy, but English became predominant because, you know, the rest of the lower class, whatever you how you want to refer to them, the merchant class probably as well, when they would enter into the courts, they would all speak English requiring the aristocratic judges to adopt English. And then because laws had to be defined in English just eventually became the dominant thing. And so because of classism in the UK, something famously not in Canada,
00:24:36
Speaker
It probably is, this is their way of saying, oh no, it's Latin in origin when in reality it probably is just a colloquialism and they're just trying to say face. Yeah, it was probably just sailor slang and then it turned into a thing that people started calling it, bubbled up to the officers and then they needed to post facto, make it sound fancy. mike In all fairness, I think that English is a garbage language and that French is actually a much nicer language all overall. like i Um, even though I'm terrible at speaking French, I do happen to like it quite a bit and I make an effort to try and get better at it. I mean, there's, oh yeah, the, the, the language of love or as those who speak it like to say, dash black a liva um the most elegant language of all. Yes. So having spoken about being in Jack, um it's now we can talk about the flags. of Canada. Now, I'm not going to talk about all of the variants. So that means I will not be talking about random flags such as the Hudson's Bay Company, which famously had a flag. It's yeah not very notable, except if you're indigenous in the 1800s and 1700s.
00:25:46
Speaker
ah Yes, that that flag means death. Yes, pretty much. Also choosing to overlook the American flag, but what I will say is that despite this not being an American history podcast, it was adopted in 1775, decades before the British formally adopted theirs, but the Union Jack existed before the American flag, and it was a symbol. Wait a second. I thought the rule was no flag, no country. So are you telling me that the British Empire didn't actually have a flag until after the American? No, no, no, they did have a flag before that. It just wasn't made like it wasn't made in law until the yeah, I wasn't codified in the law. Yeah, but they had a flag which kind of leads into the next point here is like I'm also not going to be really mention anything about the French because by the time flags became common practice, France was no longer really in the picture of respect to Canada, but there was a new France flag. It was like white and gold, wasn't it?
00:26:36
Speaker
No, it was like a Azure with some Florida Florida is okay. Yeah. Yeah. yeah and like Yeah. It's a pretty but like the thing is it was never codified and it was not really flowing on mass. So like there's only so much evidence about it. So I'm just not I didn't really care to talk too much about it. But again, we're talking about the flag of Canada and how it evolved into what we have today. So this is going to get a little visual at this point. So again, I'm going to do my best. I'm going to assume that everybody who's listening to this podcast knows what a Union Jack looks like. There's going to be a slight different variation on the first flag here. It's not going to have the 45 degree angle red lines on it. But this is the first flag we're going to talk about is the red ensign with nothing on it but a red background and a very a slightly different variation of the Union Jack on the top left known as a canton formed in a square. where as opposed to a rectangle. This was the British American flag and was used from 1585 until 1801. It represented the Canada's, so being upper and lower Canada, as well as the original 13 colonies of the United States until 1783 when the American Revolutionary War concluded. This is your Anglosphere indigenous genocide starter pack kit-like flag. Yes, and technically for a while Canada and the United States had the same flag.
00:27:53
Speaker
So from 1801 onward, the Union Jack was the official flag of the United Kingdom, which included both Upper and Lower Canada, later becoming the province of Canada in 1841, and then eventually the Dominion of Canada, when it formed in 1867, upon the Confederation of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. To this day, despite a lot of people's understandings, this is still an official flag of Canada, but we'll discuss a little bit more about that later on. This flag is depicted in the modern flags of the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and Manitoba. With a little asterisk for the British Columbia one, because we mildly defaced ours. We mildly defaced ours, and it's a little bit um less childish, which I'm going to talk about in a moment.
00:28:38
Speaker
So from 1868 through to 1921, Canada had adopted an unofficial defacto flag, which was a red ensign um with the Union Jack on the top left and a shield on the middle right, representing the original four provinces of confederation. And what they were doing is they created the shield and took all of the existing provincial shields and put them inside the shield. So you'd have four different corners representing the four original provinces. Yeah, we made we made fucking art for every single one of our inductees rather than like just putting a star. Yeah, it's it's it's it's fine and dandy.
00:29:17
Speaker
Until tell it gets silly. Until it gets silly because the shield would grow as provinces joined Canada and by the time nine provinces were in the country, as you could say, became repetitive. You would have like three crosses of St. George on it, a second Union Jack, four lions and three different depictions of the prairies. The thing was a goddamn fucking mess. It was beautiful. We should have just taken that, turned it unaltered sideways, squared it off and made it our flag. I really do think that what they were going for was very different from what the United States was. And I have a flag later on that sort of gets worse.
00:29:54
Speaker
Like you think this could get worse, but it's sorry, you think it couldn't get worse. But like, yeah, as I show you the proto flags, you're going to be like, what the fuck is this? This one is even worse than this idea. In 1921, a decision was made to adopt the shield from the Canadian coat of arms. So the Canadian Code of Arms has, I believe the best way to describe it is, um and one qua so starting from the top left, you'd have three lions and a pale, a lion rampart on the top right, a golden harp atop of azure on the bottom representing Ireland, and on the a fleur de lis on the bottom right ah in gold atop of azure. This was then finished with the bottom of the shield depicting three maple leaves conjoined on a single stem. And these three maple leaves were actually colored green for now.
00:30:38
Speaker
Because come 1957, the flag was slightly amended to have the maple leaves colored red. Because the communists won.
00:30:49
Speaker
Canada famously communist. this is This became known as the red ensign that to this day we actually know about, despite the fact that there's been numerous iterations of red ensigns. And one of the things about the flag is that while the Red Ensign was the de facto flag for Canada, it was never codified. For all intents and purposes, the Union Jack was the legal flag of Canada. William Y. Mackenzie King made numerous attempts to during his times as Prime Minister to adopt a new flag. He made attempts in 1927, 1931, 1939, and 1945. Just to give you an idea of how... During every time and in the PMO's office, or the Prime Minister's office, he tried. He was't he is our longest serving Prime Minister. I think the person behind him was um ah McDonald and then followed by Pierre Trudeau. Yes, and we spit on McDonald's grave. So a couple of flags that are going to come up here is this one is by Anatole Vanier. I like this one.
00:31:53
Speaker
I do actually like this one. I don't. it's a But then he was a political activist, lawyer, and once president of the publication Laxian Nationale and magazine, which would later become the source of inspiration for Quebec's separatism. Similar to the Red Ensign, it doesn't have the shield, but it has the fleur-de-lis in blue on a white background below the Union Jack. So just kind of take the flag cut in half. You have the Union Jack on the top left, and you have the fleur-de-lis on the bottom left as well. Yeah, big red for all the people we murdered. I like the idea behind it because it's like we're half English, half French, half murder.
00:32:32
Speaker
But like i I like the idea behind it. he's's He's catching a vibe here. Yeah, this would be later followed up four years later by Gerard Gallienne. I don't know much about this individual other than he might have worked as an archivist for the Quebec government. There's no official explanation for this flag or the flag for it. They're just kind of speaking for themselves. But to describe this flag, you have blue in on kind of taking up a third on the left and on a third on the right, followed by a white strip saddling a red stripe going down the center with the Canadian shield from the renensin as described before. The impression I get from this flag is that it's supposed to depict the two oceans of Canada, completely ignoring the fact that the Arctic exists. Yes, it's overall kind of mid and a little bit strangely proportioned. I don't know why, but this mis makes me think of Belgium for some strange reason. I just can't figure out why. It makes me feel like this is the Canada as claustrophobia flag for being crushed by the two oceans. That's what the white line is. It's actually a wall and it's just slowly closing in on us.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yes, yeah, it feels like this this is the flag representing us being crushed by the dual powers of like America and Britain just causing us to be trapped in a room anyway. Yeah, it's not a particularly good flag. This is followed up in 1939 by a flight by F.M. Cote, even less details about this individual. Again, no official explanation given, but to way to describe this, you have a white stripe going on a diagonal starting from the top right to the bottom left with a green leaf in the center, assuming a maple leaf. On the top left, Chevron, it's ah navy blue with a
00:34:15
Speaker
Not quite a canton, but like it's still a Union Jack on the top left. It has a bit of padding away from the edges. Drag the Union Jack JPEG into the into the middle like ah aesthetic middle of the chevron. Yeah, and then on the bottom right, you have a red color, similar size, and you have just a single aferodily. I like this one as an extension of kind of the Vanier flag. It makes me think of a diving flag. I was just like just double checking and it like it makes me think of a divers flag. It has it has some semaphore vibes also going on, but like the Union Jack component is rather awkward. I get what he's going for here, and I think it's a good vibe. It's just not quite there yet.
00:34:57
Speaker
So in 1946, there was a parliamentary committee and they came up with just going back to the red ensign, replacing the shield with a autumn maple leaf, like a child's drawing of a autumn maple leaf. It's very strange. it's It's gold color. But when I see this, I'm thinking, like, are we describing that all of our leaves are falling and that that's what this country is going to become? It feels like Canada in Sapia mode. Like, that this is the worst one. I think we can agree. Yeah, it's very uninspiring. and you can think and And it says it's from a committee, which isn't surprising. Okay, you know what? Fair. So despite King's intentions, no new flag would be adopted. And while attempts were being made, nothing would be like no nothing serious would be done until the 1960s.
00:35:44
Speaker
In 1960, before he became Prime Minister, Lester B. Pearson wrote to Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, as and we spoke about earlier, and also of Diefenbunker fame, who only recently killed off the average in favour of putting nuclear warheads on Canadian soil, asked him to provide a solution to put to bed once and for all what Canada's global identities should be. and he declined. Most Diefenbaker thing to do. Yeah, Diefenbaker just was like, fuck that. Canada's identity, and as far as Diefenbaker is concerned, was underground. In the same year, the current flag of British Columbia was adopted, and I'm bringing this up now because it's going to become important about the two other flags that were introduced with the Union Jack later on. I don't hate the British Columbia flag, personally. It's very busy. It's half of a good flag. Okay, so
00:36:34
Speaker
I'm going to explain the British Columbia flag a little bit. Just so what it is is half the flag is horizontally has the Union Jack. It's just stretched white out. Just imagine your parents, you know, TV watching four by three content at 16 by nine. Just imagine that. um And on the bottom, it shows a sun rising with water, just to indicate that British Columbia sits ah on the Pacific Ocean. And then one little tidbit about this is there's a crown in the center of the Union Jack, and that is to depict that British Columbia had adopted what is known as responsible government, which had to do a lot with finances and so forth, and a colony that was able to prove that it was capable of responsible government.
00:37:14
Speaker
did not have to be directly ruled by London, and so to speak. I think that's the best way to describe it. So it was granted sovereignty. Of sorts, yeah, of sorts. by And that's what the Crown is supposed to represent. As a result, Pearson made adopting a new flag as part of Liberal Party policy in both the 1962 and 1963 federal election campaigns. In the 63 election, Pearson made it clear that if elected, he would have a new flag established in two years. And much like much like electoral reform, you can definitely trust the liberals on this one. Actually, yes, you can. ah Surprisingly, they actually did make through on this, but we'll talk about this. Put a pin in it. His party did win, but with a minority government, and thus had to work with his rival, Diefenbaker, on making a flag happen. Diefenbaker was famously happy about losing the election. This is a good opportunity, maybe to explain to Americans and anyone that isn't in Britain or Australia what a minority government is. If you're in Britain or Australia, you know it as a hung parliament. We just call the minority ah government. All that means is we have a pluralistic voting system for parliament and you could have like say 300 seats in the legislature and you win 140 and your opposition wins the 160. Even though you have the most seats as a party, you're still outnumbered by your opposition, so you usually have to work with a different party in order to get legislation passed. This is the case with the current parliament. Justin Trudeau's government has to work alongside the NDP party lit by Jagmeet Singh.
00:38:48
Speaker
or has to work with the conservatives if the pure Pauli average is actually going to agree on just with Justin on anything, which is rare or with a party Quebec, ah sorry, with the block Quebec, what part party Quebec was the provincial wing with the block Quebecois, which I don't which don't really have much of and don't really have enough seats anyway in the current legislature or in the current parliament. So that's just something to keep in mind about like the challenges that Pearson had ahead of himself Yeah, you you also you also see in like another rendition of this you see is very popular in and like German and Austrian politics is the yeah the the coal the governing coalition where several part no party has enough to form government, but they'll kind of wheel and deal with each other to put together a collection of parties who can form government together. And this will usually come with cabinet positions being sprinkled throughout the parties and stuff like that.
00:39:41
Speaker
We don't do that so much here because we don't have a functional ah democracy. Well, OK, so one thing in its defense is that we almost did have that happen in the late 2000s when Harper was in a minority government situation. And ah Michael Ignatieff's liberals, Jack Leighton's NDP, and ah it was like Gilles Gisette block Quebecois were did agree famously to form a coalition, but Harper put a stop to it by getting a parliament pro-rogued. What's that? He prorogued Parliament and then a media smear campaign basically took off. Yeah, but it's not unheard of in Canada because um this did happen in British Columbia after the 2017 provincial election and this is where the This was the election of the NDP with the B.C. Liberals ending up in a minority government situation. The Liberals, sorry, the NDP and the Greens agreed to form a coalition government. Premier Christy Clark at the time took exception to that, went to the lieutenant governor to ask her to dissolve parliament and call another election no more than what, three weeks after losing the election or losing in the majority government status, excuse me. And the lieutenant governor, who was appointed by Christy Clark, said fuck off and then told the and NDP to form a government with the Greens. And then that's why the NDP are in power today. Also, more recent ah expert on minority governments, ah Modi in India. Oh, is that actually concluded? Yeah, Modi got a minority. Fuck that guy and fucking do nationalists.
00:41:12
Speaker
Anyway, that's enough about um hung parliaments or minority governments, however you want to refer to them. They're the most democratic way to have Westminster parliamentary systems. I 100% agree with you on this. I actually like that. A year after the election of the Liberals in 1964, Pearson established a committee with Member of Parliament for Leeds in Ontario, not the UK, so fake Leeds, John Matheson being key to the multi-party group. John Matheson being the one in the Heritage Minute from before. Um, small tidbit, Mathison, who died in 2013, was cousins with Peter Milliken, who was Speaker of the House from 2001 until 2011, who survived three Governor Generals and three Prime Ministers. Ah, yeah, I forgot Milliken served for like fucking ever. This committee included seven members of the Liberal Party, one of the New Democrat Party, five of the Progressive Conservatives, aka the Tories, one from the Romac Cretist,
00:42:04
Speaker
um that Which is the Quebec answer to the social credits, and of course one from this social credit, the English-speaking one. Geographically, four from Ontario, one were from Newfoundland, one was from Saskatchewan, two from British Columbia, four from Quebec, one from Manitoba, two from New Brunswick, and nobody from Alberta, Prince Edward Island, or Nova Scotia, nor the two territories. I'm guessing he was thinking in the most Pearson way fashion that they were going to be bitter anyway, so... it Actually, put a pin in that. So Pearson gave them six weeks as he wanted the flag to be across the country in time for the 1967 Canadian Centennial. One of the sticking points of the current flag was the Union Jack. On one hand, Quebec was supposed to have a Union Jack portrayed on any future Canadian flag due to it representing a foreign nation.
00:42:54
Speaker
Which is fair. On the other hand, veterans wanted the Union Jack portrait to honor Taisi in a kingdom and other Commonwealth nations such as Australia and New Zealand. This came to a head four months prior to the formation of the committee when the Pearson pennant, a nickname given to the above flag, which I'll describe in the moment here. Actually, you know what? I will describe it. And so they give you an idea. It's the maple leaf, as you know, and love it on sitting on a stem. Three of them are kind of just going, you know, like one on the left, one on the right and one in the center on a white background with two white blue, start two blue stripes um on the left and right kind of again, to signify the only two oceans in Canada as opposed to elsewhere.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah, this is this is the Kellyanne flag, but like fully realized. It's the final form of, I think, this idea. Yeah. And so this flag was leaked to the press a few months prior to the World Canadian Legion convention in Winnipeg. And when Pearson made an appearance there, he made it clear during a keynote that the time had come to replace the incident with a Maple Leaf flag. And he was met with boos and hisses from the 2000 attendees. It was made clear by Pearson to this committee that any flag chosen must avoid the use of national or racial symbols. And I put on the right here for Tamarack, but this is probably the most batshit one that came out of it. I mean, you mentioned earlier about I like this one. you meant you didn comment about the american flag and it has like nine maple lees and one flo deise yes
00:44:21
Speaker
and then the the nine tros on the bottom right and these three geese Yes, I like the geese. I think we should have just flown the geese. I'm not gonna lie, these geese make me think it was generated by like fucking mid-journey. I don't know, I get what they're going with and I like it. It's cute. It would never serve as a flag, but it's fucking cute. Well, this flag was out because the Union Jack and the Florida Lees were not appropriate options for the flag, according to Pearson. So during this six week period, 35 meetings were held and the public were invited to provide their suggestions. And to give you some stats on this, 3,541 entries were submitted.
00:44:58
Speaker
2,136 had maple leafs. 300, oh my god, this is what I get for for thinking of hockey. Maple leafs? 389 had beavers. And 767 had union jacks, fleur de lis, or combinations thereof. I would like one of the flags of Canada to just be like a hockey player with the Stanley Cup. Maple leafs? You know, you say that, but there's I want to say it's in our in our Constitution that it does represent a there's a hockey player represented as a silhouette.
00:45:30
Speaker
Oh, really? and Sorry, no, it is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And if you pull it up and you look at the the actual printing of it, you'll see like fifth from the left of all the silhouettes being represented as a hockey player. And to the best of my visuals here, I don't see um a lacrosse player. Yeah. And the hockey player doesn't have a doesn't have a Stanley Cup because clearly that's ah's representing the Canucks. Yeah, maybe the Oilers will win this year. Who the fuck knows? I don't really care. I haven't watched hockey since 2011 or I haven't watched NHL hockey since 2011. I should correct myself because I just definitely watch women's hockey. So, however, one George Stanley would stand out and would conspire with Matheson to insert his design into the final selection pool. This is where I'd said put a pin in this. Stanley was an Albertan and he was a historian at the Royal Military College of Canada and was head of the history department and dean of arts. So Alberta has its hand in this.
00:46:22
Speaker
The idea for his flag came to him while standing in front of a building and observed the college flag flying in the wind. Edits were made and the two blue sides, as you can see here, just imagine a Canadian flag with ah blue sides on both on the left and right and much narrower. That's kind of the idea. um Those were made wider and were turned to red. Yeah, it's the it's the Pearson flag, but one the three Maple Leafs have been reduced to one that is drawn worse. Yeah, and the color, and then it was eventually replaced with red after some corrections. On October 22nd, 1964, the committee had whittled down all submissions leaving with just the Pearson flag and the Stanley flag to face each other. The Tories had assumed that the Liberals on the committee would back the Pearson flag and had decided to back
00:47:08
Speaker
Stanley, however, they were wrong and the liberals chose the Stanley flag, and as a result, the entire committee unanimously chose the flag we have today. So when that segment, that that history moment, was saying that this was chosen unanimously, sort of. It was the Tories trying to stick it to stick it to the libs as they normally do. Yes. So it is the foundation of their policymaking. Exactly. So like I said here, um before it was made official, a couple of edits were made to the flag. The sides of the flag were made thicker. However, this one cool thing, and this is kind of a connection back to the Avro arrow. The points on the flea were reduced from 13 to 11 as fucking wind tunnel tests were done at the NRC. And they determined that it presented a more visible shape whenever it was flapping in the wind.
00:47:53
Speaker
ah that's funny Yeah, so like the outer arrow and the Canadian flag, you know, have a connection to each other in some way. I mean, they had the wind tunnel that they built for the damn thing. I suppose that makes sense. You should do you should do wind tunnel tests on all flags. That's what I feel. You should definitely do it on the flag of like Brazil and then try to read it. Honestly, yeah, like I think i think the the epidemic that we have in North America or like in the Americas of text on flags would go away if we had to do like wind tunnel legibility testing. So you say this but um the UK is pretty bad about this too. um There's a lot of council flags that are out there and especially the newer like councils
00:48:36
Speaker
um like in London or anywhere in England they're just fucking wretched. It's not just an America's thing like um I'm just trying to find the a list of flags but pretty certain like a lot of the boroughs of London have these horrible looking flags and they have some of them have words on them. I'm going back to the Canadian flag. ah Well, the committee was unanimous. Diefenbaker was in fact pissed and is in party engaged in a filibuster for six weeks to prevent the flag from being voted on. So just saying in that Heritage Minute that it was unanimous is kind of bullshit.
00:49:07
Speaker
I feel like somebody must have known since Diefenbaker was called out by name in the Heritage Minute, was he not? Well, no, but the thing is, the narration did a lot of weight with the word unanimous. That's what I was trying to get at. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure, but not really. Yeah, again, because this flag is not a bunker. And while it may have passed well in wind tunnel tests, it is not as visible underground. That's very true. Many MPs were pissed at Diefenbaker for behaving this way. And even one of his own senior members, as well as a critics MP, advised Pearson to cut off debate. After 250 speeches, the final vote took place. Yeah, I know. to that is some ah That is some like American Congress style ah like delay. Filibustering is rare in Canada. It's not a thing you normally do in parliamentary politics.
00:50:04
Speaker
It does not happen here very often. And this one in particular, I think Diefenbaker was more doing this because he was sore over an election loss than anything else. But at 2.15 a.m. on December 15th, 1964, the vote was passed as 163 to 78 and the flag was adopted. Many of the votes for the flag actually came from Diefenbaker's own Francophone at Peace. And Diefenbaker's response to the vote passing was, a flag by closure imposed by closure. On the afternoon of the same day, the tired MPs also voted for it to continue the use of the Union Jack as the official flag to symbolize allegiance to the Crown and membership in the Commonwealth, with the Senate also voting in favor.
00:50:48
Speaker
So that's the reason why, legally speaking, you can use the Union Jack as a Canadian flag. It still is legal to use it as a Canadian flag. It's just not a common practice because it's used for different purposes. Legally speaking, it also makes you an asshole if you bring this up. so Well, we're going to talk about that. so On the same day as Winston Churchill's funeral, January 28, 1965, saw Queen Elizabeth II sign a royal plot proclamation indicating that Canada adopted its flag, witnessed by both Pearson and Diefenbaker. And on February 15, 1965, an official ceremony was held at Parliament Hill, where the Governor-General Georges Van Yay, the Prime Minister, members of Cabinet, and the MPs raised the flag for the flag. first time. Flags throughout Canada, at the United Nations, in New York, embassies, and on naval ships were replaced nearly simultaneously to reflect the change that had happened. And that is how Canada ended up with the flag we know today. And it's a pretty good flag? I'd say solid B tier? It's fine, i but I have some sore spots over the flag. But let's talk about the sore spots, ri the sore sports.
00:51:53
Speaker
So, as we all know, Diefenbaker was pretty unhappy, but he wasn't the only person to be unhappy. While many balked at the design, it was none other than the provinces of Manitoba and Ontario who had the most, how can we say, negative responses to the flags, and a result decided to adopt their own version of the Red Ensign in the ensuing months after the official adoption of the Canadian flag. See, Ontario makes sense. Manitoba is the one that kind of, I guess the demographic shift away from the Métis probably helped, but like it sort of makes sense. And Manitoba is a little bit iffy. But well let's put a pin in that opposition to the flag's adoption from the two provinces largely came from rural areas as opposed to the urban areas. So like i most people in Toronto probably didn't care about it.
00:52:37
Speaker
Ontario had the most knee-jerk reaction of the two provinces. Just a month and a few days after a Canada's flag became official, the province passed legislation to make the current provincial flag based on the red incident official, and on May 21st of that same year, the flag went to effect and was flown at government buildings. Ontario's decision was largely in response to most of its residents being only 40% in favor of the new flag, as indicating a poll made in the year prior. Only two members of the provincial parliament, that's an MPP, because Ontario loves to have origins in in the United Kingdom, voted against the new flag. They were both Elmer Sulfa, the MPP ah for Sudbury, and Martin Leo Troy, the MPP p for Nipissing. Just to explain that, just to explain that comment, ah most provinces have legislative assemblies and thus MLAs. I can't remember if Max actually does that. it's like a Because they use the term I think it's assembly and I think that's reflected in the title at National Assembly or something like that. I'm just trying to remember. Yeah, it's the National Assembly.
00:53:36
Speaker
Yeah. Sofa, who had the nickname the Northern Gadfly, object to his objection to the adoption of the flag was largely due to represent not representing Ontario's diversity. And Sudbury being quite popular with Franco-Ontarians, they just saw it as a flag of symbolizing British imperial imperialism. Which it is. That's true. Yeah. And in 2015, the A-liberal MPP put forward legislation to celebrate the flag. Well, fuck that MPP. What's his name? I didn't put the notes down and I didn't care because it's it's a stupid flag. It is a stupid flag! What the hell? It's not a very good flag. It's very unoriginal. And you're of our Lord and Satan 2015 also. Like, come on. I know. It's such a fucking awful flag. So in May 11th of the same year, Manitoba passed an ascended legislation to adopt the current Red Ensign for its province. So Ontario had it has its shield on its flag. Manitoba has its shield on its flag. and There's not really much of a difference.
00:54:31
Speaker
On May 12, 1966, after approval was given by the Queen to deface a British flag, which is required to do to make these flags happen, it's hoisted at the Manitoba Legislature in a ceremony with one of the two individuals raising the flag being a descendant of Thomas Button, a Welsh explorer who first raised the British flag in what is now Manitoba during the early 1600s. Unlike Ontario, there have been concerted efforts to actually replace the flag. One thing about the flag's adoption was that it was a compromise, as there were calls from within the government to adopt a contest similar to that was done by Pearson. And even in the past decades, there's been attempts to change the flag, either party level or whatever. But this year, the Manitoba Vexological Association conducted a poll with results being about 59% in favor. and These were respondents identified as being in the province.
00:55:16
Speaker
As a side note, the flag in Nova Scotia does not have a renounce and it's kind of an inverse Scottish flag with um a lion's shield on it. Despite the fact that it adopted the flag in 1929, it didn't have any recognition in law until 2013 and is actually the last province to legally define its flag. Despite being one of the first to have a flag. I actually don't know when Nova Scotia adopted its flag like in general, but like it's one of the more early flags for sure. I will also note that the British Columbia flag, as mentioned earlier, was not a response to the Red Ensign, but it actually did have a Blue Ensign for a long time, and I have to say it's the dumbest flag because it has the Union Jack on it twice.
00:55:57
Speaker
Yeah, we're we've been BC has been inching its way from an F-tier flag slowly working its way to an A-tier flag, but we're not quite there yet. We're exactly halfway, I would say. Yeah, until 1968, it had like its shield alongside, on a blue ensign, alongside the Union Jack. But then, of course, the shield has a Union Jack on it. like Basically, think of it as a BC flag, except less distorted. but Yeah, it's really dumb. And then of course, like the flag prior to that was actually for the colony of BC. And just as the letters BC in a white circle with a blue ensign, and it has like a lion with a top of a crown wearing a crown. It's such a stupid flag. BC had a shit flag until 1960.
00:56:37
Speaker
even though i'm I don't mind the BC flag, like I said, but like meh. So yeah, so that's that is the history of flags in Canada. But I do want to kind of leave it off with flags today. I but have a lot of mixed feelings about the Canadian flag, especially in the past um three years. Back in 2022, I remember dealing or rather watching people engage in that stupid freedom rally shit, you know, have a going in convoys and all that and really flying the Canadian flag in a way that is basically fascism. And there's my opinion about the way the Canadian flag is flown by non-government entities these days is that you fall into a category of three people, ignorance, fascist, or immigrant.
00:57:21
Speaker
And that's the reason why I kind of am careful about how people use the Canadian flag. Like, especially around July 1st, referred to as Canada Day by some, it's very popular to fly the flag and just not really think twice about it. But it's very common to see people use the maple leaf as kind of a conservative and it's some sort of conservative effort is best way to describe it, which is really ironic considering the poories never really liked the flag to begin with. And one thing about the Red Ensign I'll also point out is that a lot of Chuds like to use the Red Ensign as like some sort of a symbol of like Canadian imperialism, which is just a laugh and a half right there. So as a consequence, I don't really have a lot of love for the Canadian flag. like It doesn't. It's not to say that I hate the flag itself. I just don't like the symbol of it whenever I see it around, only because just enough people like aside from like all the
00:58:15
Speaker
the stuff we could talk about First Nations and so forth, like it's just the way it was being used by Freedom Convoy people really left a sour taste in my mouth. I mean, yeah, it's much like how the American flag, especially with its juxtaposition with the stars and bars, the the Confederate battle flag, but with the scale tool applied to it, like in the States being kind of the the rallying standard of of American fascists, like The Maple Leaf, which I always thought is a very disarming kind of symbology of a flag, being adopted by the blood and soil types is a little disheartening to see. I always thought it was a fine flag and it it sucks to see it sucks to see it appropriate appropriated like that.
00:58:57
Speaker
yeah and like i don't like And the thing is, it's like, I also don't hate the Red Ensign and it's in its own design. Like it don't get me wrong. Like, again, this country is stolen. Like every all the land that we sit on here as we as we record this episode is stolen land. But if I look at it from an origin standpoint for what it's supposed to stand for, I genuinely didn't don't think that the Red Ensign is that bad. But I can also understand that it's a flag representing a foreign nation, despite, you know, the fact that where this country comes from. And Thing is, it's like we're not the only Commonwealth nation to run into this. um New Zealand famously in the past 10 years has attempted to get rid of its flag, which is not too dissimilar to that of the Australian flag, except the Southern Cross is colored red. And I think it has one last star, if I remember correctly, like nobody could vote like they did it through a referendum and nobody
00:59:46
Speaker
went with anything that was like they just went with the status quo, which is unfortunate. I can also understand like how much work it's required to just change the flag. Yes, like it's just it's so much work and like Pearson's government really took on a hard task and managed to pull it off and it was achieved through compromise. And that is something that governments today, regardless of being in a more like a minority government or not, are incapable of doing. And this is especially true for those on the conservative right. They have no concept of the kind of of compromise. It's literally this or nothing. It's purely a binary option. And the Canadian flag is formed through compromise.
01:00:22
Speaker
Yes, and it shows and that's probably one of the areas where like this is a thing that should be like it's representing the whole country. So you can't just have one interest group. And this is actually my my complaint about it is that it was something that was. It was a connection that got this flag in rather than really sincerely because it occurred during an era where we didn't sincerely engage with the Indigenous population to make something that was actually representative of the whole of Canada, even kind of the ugly parts.
01:00:58
Speaker
You know, absolutely. Thing is, it's like I didn't put this in the show notes and um I'm going to be kind of speaking from the hip here. But when the anniversary of Canada's flag came up in and trying to remember the whole story here, but like it came up and um the Tories were being asked, like, how come we're not doing a celebration in honor of the Canadian flag being adopted? 50 years of 50 years in Maple Leaf. Yeah. And they refused to do so, but they also then the governor general at the time said like, it's already a huge part of Canadian society and it's hard to imagine Canada today without it, which in some, ah some fairness I agree with, but then, um, the Harper government also overlooked the, uh, anniversary, uh, 25th anniversary of the, uh, 1982, uh, constitution. So, you know, those two products were both of the liberal party and I guess the Tories are still salty despite being a quarter century, half century later.
01:01:47
Speaker
But hey, they did ah they did celebrate the anniversary of the War of 1812. I know. That's the most frustrating thing. It's like they're willing to celebrate taking it to the Americans, even though they're all secret Americans anyway. Yeah. Like if I have a gripe about modern conservatives is that they much like much like most things in Canada post NAFTA have just decided to cease the conservatism industry in Canada and import from the state. Exactly. Tamara, what did we learn? Uh, we learned that, uh, Canada is a land of mid flags and occasionally we produce an okay one. Yeah. I don't really have much else to say other than compromise is good and everybody should try it. Yeah. We, we aren't a, we weren't a like federal Republic. You can, you can form coalitions in government. Uh, more parties in government is more better and majority governments are inherently undemocratic because they are minority rule.
01:02:43
Speaker
Exactly. Tamara, what's the next episode going to be on? The next episode is going to be starting out a multi-host, multi-part series about sportsball. And a sport that I happen to like quite a lot. It's a sport that I know very little about. All right, well, thank you everybody for listening. If you have any comments or questions, just send an an email at mailbag at shawenaganemoments.ca, or you can also visit our website at shawenaganemoments.ca. And if you have any hate mail, just write to your MP because we don't care. I think that's a podcast. I do believe that's a podcast. All right, well, have a good one, everybody. Bye.
01:03:32
Speaker
Schewinnegan Moments is written and recorded on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, Stolo, and Tsawatuth First Nations in what is otherwise called Vancouver.