Flags

I love symbols. Flags are a good example.

But some flags are beautiful, and others are ugly. 

The Union Jack is beautiful. 

The Stars and Stripes is truly ugly. Sorry, patriotic Americans. It looks like someone has run their laundry up the flagpole. Pajamas, clearly. And the symbolism is painfully lame: just numbers. 

The Canadian Maple Leaf is one of the finest. Officially, it all means nothing. Good idea: avoids any arguments. But the symbolism, as is ideal, is obvious without being said: the brilliant red maple leaf of the Canadian autumn. The colour white has obvious associations for any Canadian. What do we Canucks forever see that is white? And red: what colour have the Mounties always worn? Red in Canada naturally means government and rule of law. 

To any Canadian, such associations are probably instinctive, and need not be belaboured. That shows how strong the symbol is.

The flags of Quebec and Nova Scotia are also first rank, in international terms. Canada has a special talent here, and it is internationally recognized. You cannot beat the Canadian Heraldic Authority either. 

But on the other end of the spectrum, the flag of Alberta is about as lame as could be. Just the provincial crest on a blue background. The only thing worse would be a white banner with the letters “ALBERTA” in black. 

The flag of Montreal used to be one of the finest. Infinitely better than Toronto’s bland corporate logo. But the flag of Montreal has now been defaced. Without public input, City Hall under Coderre marred it by putting a yellow pine tree in a red circle at its centre. 

Montreal: old flag

Montreal: new flag.

This makes the design seem too cluttered, but, worse, it trashes the symbolism. The cross, which formerly formed a nice counterpoint with the provincial flag, has been obscured. And, of course, its significance as the Christian cross has also been obscured. In a fit of utter lamefootedness, symbolically, it is now a tree which has been crucified on the ancient tree. And it is a pine tree which we now worship.

One of the great glories of the Montreal flag, too, which again seemed to counterpoint the provincial flag, is how it expressed equality for all in cosmopolitan Montreal, the world city. It would have been easy, with their majority, and even historically accurate, to give priority to the fleur-de-lys, as in the provincial banner. Instead, generously, the four largest ethnicities were presented as equal. The Montreal mosaic.

The new design instead gives strong visual priority to a symbol of the “First Nations.” Destroying what was the central significance of the old flag.

One can see, of course, the argument that on the old flag the First Nations were not included. The designers of the original would probably be surprised by the claim—to them, the fleur de lys probably included the Indians, as part of the original French polity, indeed, as generally interbred and the same people. It replaced an original beaver, which more obviously did. If the Indians were not featured more specifically, the same complaint could be made by any number of other Montreal settlers. Especially those subsumed under the “allophone” label. Where were the Welsh? Where are the Italians? The Jews? You cannot say their contribution to Montreal has been insignificant. Jacques Cartier himself was Breton, not French. Where are the Basques? Probably over a hundred other communities might raise this same objection.

So why special treatment for one minority?

The response perhaps will be that the First Nations were there first. But this is simply not true. When Maisonneuve founded Montreal, there were no First Nations villages anywhere in the vicinity. The Algonquins were past Ottawa. The Iroquois were near Syracuse in upstate New York.

There had, it is true, been a native settlement on the island when Cartier first visited: Hochelaga. But when he returned a few years later, it was gone. The entire Indian culture it represented had disappeared by the time Montreal was founded. The Mohawks who now live in Caughnawaga came later from the present US, as immigrants, to be near the Catholic mission. Montreal is no more part of their ancestral lands than Paris is part of the Spanish ancestral lands.

And now the very reason for their original presence, the cross, has ironically been effaced, on the flag of Montreal. It is all, on top of anything else, utterly ahistorical.

Worse, the white pine itself has no pedigree as a symbol of anything. It was purely invented for the occasion. It does not even mean anything to any First Nation.