I Will Be Flying the Earth Flag Instead
A Commentary for Canada Day Weekend by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper
Posted June 28th, 2024 on Niagara At Large
In February 1965, Canada’s new flag being raised in front of the Parliament building in Ottawa for the very first time.
It seems like a century ago now, but I can still remember how proud I felt when my country of Canada finally got its own flag.
Actually, it was 1965. The Beatles were cranking out one hit record after another and after years of duking it out with powerful lobby groups, our federal and provincial governments were finally ushering in a universal health care system- something that the citizens in many countries around the world, including the United States, still don’t have and that we take for granted at our peril.
There were some – mostly big C and small c conservatives who came of age earlier in the last century – who opposed Canada’s new flag, comparing it to a beer label or worse.
But as my fellow students and I gathered with our teachers around the flag pole in front of our school, as did countless other groups across the country, for the first ceremonial raising of that new flag, it was a very proud moment.
Between that and our family’s trip two years later to Montreal for Expo ’67 – a place where people around the world were coming to celebrate Canada’s first hundred years of confederation, this Canadian felt like our country was emerging from the shell of its colonial past and growing into a nation of its own.
So on Canada Day, with those good memories in mind, I have always felt proud to display the Canadian flag around my home. That is until now.
These days, the Canadian flag is too often displayed like this.
Now when I see the Canadian flag flying on a car or a truck coming down the road, it is often accompanied by an ‘F*** Trudeau’ flag (not that I am a big fan of Trudeau) or worse, with the body of the vehicles covered with slogans decrying vaccines, the mainstream media, placing a price on carbon and so on.
At the trucker protest in Ottawa two years ago
It looks like the Canadian flag has been hijacked by anti-vaxxers, climate deniers, white supremacists and others with extremist views, And what is more disheartening, I don’t see many across the country, fighting to take our flag back.
It doesn’t seem like very many people care enough to join those of us who might want to fight to take the flag back. That adds up to a lost cause and I’ve already got other issues I’m investing my energy in like trying to do what I can to raise public awareness about the climate crisis and how we can address that, and the need to save what is left of our natural heritage from the forces of ignorance and greed.
So I won’t be flying the Canadian flag around my home this year and who know when, if ever, I fly it again.
Instead, I will be flying the Earth Flag that was inspired by that iconic late-1960a photo of the earth, taken by an Apollo astronaut (William Anders, who died earlier this June) as his space capsule was orbiting the moon. It was a photo that also played a significant role in inspiring the very first Earth Day in 1970.
The Earth Flag , like that photo, stirs us to think globally and to embrace our whole planet, along with all of the life on it.
The Earth Flag embraces every living being on the planet.
It is a flag I feel very comfortable with and that is free of the negative vibes I now feel when I see a Canadian flag waving above a truck going down the road.
And unlike those who choose to wrap themselves in Canadian flags a they blather away about all the freedom they think has been stolen from them in this country, I still believe that Canada is one of the best places in the world to live.
Whatever flag you choose to fly, I wish you all a Happy Canada Day and here is to doing all we can together to protect and preserve this great Earth we live on too.
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Doug Draper. Niagara At Large
Niagara At Large Invites You to Share Your Views On This Post In The Space Following The Bernie Sanders Quote Below.
“A Politician Thinks Of The Next Election. A Leader Thinks Of The Next Generation.” – Bernie Sanders
Niagara At Large 
I completely understand and share your point of view with regard to our flag being co-opted by basically, white supremacists, who want to deny freedoms to any and all but themselves. They somehow think that by wrapping themselves in our flag that they obtain legitimacy and that they speak for all of us. They do not speak for me. I will proudly wear my Canada Day shirt on Canada Day and refuse to be bullied by a bunch of thugs.
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