On a good day in February, Debbie Hartlen could sell a Canadian flag during his workshop in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Now, daily sales have reached around 300 flags, and that does not count its larger online business.
President Trump’s plan to impose rates paralyzing Canadian exports is considered a devastating threat to many Canadian companies and workers. Its trade warning – combined with its repeated calls so that the United States annexed Canada – the manufacturers of flags in the country have difficulty following a suddenly soaring demand.
“Isn’t that wonderful?” said Ms. Hartlen, who owns the flag shop in Nova Scotia. “Thank you, Trump. Who would have thought we were going to say that?
The renewed interest in the platform of the maple leaf of Canada, fueled by intense opposition to the idea of Mr. Trump to make Canada on the 51st state and his economic threats, comes as the Red and White Canadian banner marks its 60th anniversary.
And for a nation where the waving flag is less part of life than in the United States and flags are generally less visible, the resurgence fueled by Trump of Canadian patriotism has also revived the image of the Canadian flag.
The flag of the maple leaf, often swallowed or hockey sticks, has become the determining symbol used by the demonstrators who occupied and paralyzed Ottawa, the capital of Canada, for almost a month in 2022 in response to the covid restrictions.
Consequently, many Canadians have avoided showing their national flag for the sake that they would be considered to approve the demonstrations.
But things started to change while the day of the flag in Canada, which is celebrated on February 15, approached. Usually, the day goes widely unnoticed. This time, in the context of Trump’s tariff threats and criticisms in Canada, in particular by referring to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Governor Trudeau, five former prime ministers called Canadians “To show the flag like never before.”
The government organized celebrations of the 60th anniversary, which included skaters holding a giant flag in a 19th century channel in Ottawa which serves a giant skating rink during the winter. And throughout the country, Canadians rarely do something: pilot flags outside their house.
The Flags and Banners, a company based in Quebec, manufactures around 25,000 Canadian flags for the federal government and 10,000 others for other customers and uses what is generally the slow winter season to develop the inventory leading to Canada day on July 1.
This year, the request for flags is so high that the company may need to hire additional workers to face the overvoltage, said Mario Trahan, one of the owners of the company.
“There is a peak just before July 1, but it is still the same scheme each year,” said Trahan, whose company has been in the flag sector for 30 years. “But we didn’t see a rush like that.”
Before the adoption of the current version of the flag, Canada had spent almost a century trying to create and agreed with a national flag which was not simply postponed from its past as a British colony.
“English Canadians in particular have been divided on their identity,” said Forrest Pass, vexillologist, or flag scholarship holder, in Library and Archives Canada, the National Archives. “British imperial identity is still looming.”
The result, he said, was that Canada used Union Britain’s Union Jack for the first time, which is officially known as the Royal Union flag, under the name of its national flag. In 1892, the British admiralty officially allowed Canadian sales ships to pilot a red flag known under the name of Canadian Red Ensign, with the Union Jack in a corner and a small Canada shield which was undergone Many design changes.
Soon, the Canadian Rouge brand was used on land, especially by soldiers during the First World War, before obtaining an official status in 1946.
Many Canadians considered the Red brand as a “place holder,” said Dr. Pass, whose thesis was on the flags.
Various committees at various times have considered thousands of Canadian flags offered, one, said Dr. Pass, who presented a woman in bikini.
“It was something in a chalet industry, the production of new flag conceptions,” he said.
But it was Lester B. Pearson, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his work resolving the Suez crisis and the first liberal Prime Minister, who finally selected the unique design of maple leaves.
But it was a difficult sale at first. THE Debate in Parliament to adopt it was described by a historian as “among the ugliest in the history of the House of Commons” due to the strong opposition of the members of the Parliament to dilute the British heritage.
But once the debate was set and the design approved, the Canadians quickly warmed up to their new flag, said Dr. Pass.
During the Vietnam War, anecdotal stories about American travelers, died of maple patches on their backpacks before heading abroad became a source of cross -border resentment, in particular given the strong opposition of Canada to war.
But the demonstrations in Ottawa, which have become known as the convoy of the trucker – and that the polls have shown that most Canadians have strongly opposed – harm the romance of the country with its flag.
“The cooption of the flag by a small population segment has created a lot of discomfort for Canadians,” said Heather Nicol, director of the Canadian School of Studies at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. “Many people felt like:” Well, I don’t know if we want to look at this flag or steal this flag again. “”
However, in a district of downtown Ottawa which endured the fractionation of the ear, a horn of air late at night by demonstrating Protestant truckers, Sam Hudson has never shot down the four Canadian flags which largely cover the window of the tailor store which he opened 15 years ago after having emigrated from Jordan. (There is also a Scottish flag in the window in honor of its first customer.)
“I kept them because they are the symbol of our country,” said Hudson. “It is not a symbol for some people. I respect this flag. It is a symbol for 40 million people who live in this country. »»
Now, with the denigration of Trump’s Canada, Hudson said he wanted more Canadians to follow his example and start displaying the flag.
“Everywhere, at all times, all year round,” said Hudson before assuming pants. “It is our identifier”
