Chrétien’s powerful, emotional declaration as compelling today as it was nearly three decades ago

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/02/2025 (211 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Did you know any Canadian citizen can ask for one of the flags that fly above Parliament Hill?

It’s true. There are five flags that fly above the buildings that make up Parliament Hill. (Only four right now because of renovations.) The one that flies from the pole on top of the Centre Block’s Peace Tower is changed every weekday, while the other flags are changed weekly.

Once retired from service, they are sent to eager citizens who have requested a flag through an online application.

Two notes of caution.

The flags are big (the Peace Tower flag is 2.3 metres by 7.5 metres), and the wait list is currently more than 100 years.

I’ve always thought the century-long wait list was a unique expression of our national pride. If not for love of your country, why else would you sign up to get something that will only become available to your children’s grandchildren?

Those of you who don’t know about the free flags might also not know we celebrate National Flag of Canada Day every Feb. 15 to commemorate the inauguration of the current flag in 1965. It’s not a statutory holiday, so it’s an important date in the calendar overlooked by many Canadians.

But not this year.

This year’s Flag Day could very well see an expression of national pride usually reserved for top-level international hockey.

This year, an unusually high number of Flag Day celebrations are being planned for Saturday, and Canadian flags are reportedly flying off the shelves in unprecedented numbers. The five living former prime ministers — Joe Clark, Kim Campbell, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper — have called on Canadians to celebrate Flag Day and “show the flag as never before.”

The “call to wave flags” is only one element in the sudden eruption of nationalistic fervour in Canada right now driven by the clear and present danger posed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Wielding annexation and tariff threats like nunchucks, Trump has thrown much of the world — including most of America’s closest economic and military allies — into complete chaos.

Of course, it seems unlikely Trump’s histrionics are really about trade deficits or manifest destiny. Increasingly, it appears that Trump threatens and disparages other countries simply for the pure joy of basking in the rage he elicits.

In hockey parlance, Trump is a rat. If the late Bob Probert (arguably hockey’s most-feared pugilist) and Brad Marchand (the game’s hall-of-fame provocateur) had a son, he’d be Donald Trump. If only Trump could skate.

Some of us have seen an eruption of national pride like this before: in 1995, when Quebec came within 50,000 votes of separating from the rest of the country.

As the Free Press national reporter in Ottawa, I covered the Quebec referendum campaign first-hand and got to see not only the passion of separatists, but also the surprising passion of non-Quebecers who pleaded with the province to stay.

I was in Montreal on Oct. 27, 1995, when the No forces held the Unity Rally. More than 100,000 people, many from other regions of Canada, flooded downtown Montreal. It was hard not to tear up a little bit when you heard ordinary people talk so openly about how their Canada must include Quebec.

For me, the real highlight of the referendum campaign — other than being trapped in a post-result riot in downtown Montreal, where police fought for hours with angry péquistes throwing bricks and bottles — was the nationally televised speech delivered by Chrétien two days earlier.

Although the threat to national unity then was different than the Trump threat now, Chrétien’s words still echo as one of the best, and most passionate, arguments for why Canada is worth fighting for.

In these hyper-partisan times,there might be some who are unwilling to accept Chrétien as a legitimate defender of the country. Those people did not hear, or do not remember, this landmark speech.

“The end of Canada would be nothing less than the end of a dream. The end of a country that has made us the envy of the world. Canada is not just any country. It is unique. It is the best country in the world.

“Perhaps it is something we have come to take for granted. But we should never, never let that happen. Once more, today it’s up to each of us to restate our love for Canada. To say we don’t want to lose it.

“What we have built together in Canada is something very great and very noble. A country whose values of tolerance, understanding, generosity have made us what we are: a society where our No. 1 priority is the respect and dignity of all our citizens.

“Other countries invest in weapons, we invest in the well-being of our citizens. Other countries tolerate poverty and despair, we work hard to ensure a basic level of decency for everyone. Other countries resort to violence to settle differences, we work out our problems through compromise and mutual respect.

“This is what we have accomplished.”

Amen, and pass the Okanagan Valley cabernet sauvignon.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca