What should we make of the Red Ensign? Most people see it only when it is brought out on Remembrance Day, and few times apart from Nov. 11. Controversy over Canada’s first flag recently re-emerged in a story about the Ottawa-funded Canadian Anti-Hate Network, which falsely deemed it to be racist .
While that was old news, having been written about in the National Post and elsewhere two years ago , it is difficult to ignore the growing appropriation of Canada’s first truly national flag by bad actors. Activists of all stripes and those intoxicated by nostalgia keep trying to make the Red Ensign into something it is not. Cultural socialists have attempted to besmirch it as a hate symbol, while white supremacist groups have tried very hard to confirm those false accusations.
Simply put, the Red Ensign is a flag of Canada and for all Canadians. It is not the current official flag, but it still represents the country and an enormous chunk of its history from 1868 to 1965. Perhaps that is why far-left activists wish to slander it and the provincial flags it inspired, as if it symbolizes the first half of a foreign country’s lifespan, with an alien culture that has no place in modern Canada.
On the contrary, the Red Ensign deserves to be fully respected and accorded its due share of prestige. Canada cannot be divided into pre- and post-1965 eras, and there has never been an “old” or “new” Canada, there is only one. This attempt to manufacture historical amnesia via dem.