Saluting Flag Day with an extra dose of patriotism

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This article was published 15/02/2025 (207 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Red, white, and patriotic all over.

Saturday marked National Flag Day of Canada and the 60th anniversary of the Canadian flag, and some Winnipeggers had their national pride on full display.

Residents streamed in and out of the Corydon Community Centre Saturday afternoon to try to get their hands on a Canadian flag at a giveaway put on by Coun. John Orlikow.

The 100 flags Orlikow (River Heights-Fort Garry) purchased were gone within 10 minutes.

“(Residents) just felt very happy that they could be together, sharing this moment together and being able to celebrate Canada,” he said.

Mindy Lowe was hoping to get her hands on a large flag to display in her home. One is proudly hung at her cottage and, given the current political climate, she wanted a second.

“I think the more patriotism, the more unified our country is, I think the better we’re gonna do in the long run against, you know who,” she said.

The new-found sense of patriotism among many Canadians comes in the wake of threats against the nation’s sovereignty from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump has repeatedly suggested Canada should become the 51st state and referred to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governer Trudeau.”

Referring to the 47th president as “Mango Mussolini” Lowe is worried Trump’s politics are creeping north of the border; she recently saw a truck on the highway with decals both saying “No child left behind” and “Make America Great Again.”

“How can you stand for both?” she said.

Orlikow and his assistant hunted down Canadian-made flags for the event, which proved to be difficult as many shelves were picked clean of red-and-white gear.

He said the event was a way he could redirect his anger for what is occurring south of the border

“It makes me nauseous, pure and simple, it makes me angry. I’ve been a big globalist for a long time, and to see that our most cherished partner is doing this to us in the way that they’re pulling us like this, it really makes me mad. But again, we have to step back and figure out how we’re going to go through this together,” he said.

In a joint statement earlier this week, former prime ministers Jean Chrétien, Joe Clark, Kim Campbell, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper urged Canadians to wave the flag with pride on Flag Day.

A Leger poll published this week found 85 per cent of Canadians said they feel proud to be Canadian amid threats from south of the border.

While hundreds were celebrating Francophone culture at Festival du Voyageur’s 56th event on Saturday, some walked around the festival grounds in St. Boniface with small Canadian flags to mark both occasions.

While he wasn’t aware Flag Day was an annual observance until this year, Grant Lamarche dug up a handheld flag in his storage closet and brought it to have on hand throughout the day.

Lamarche said the symbol is a small way he can support the country amid the president’s threat of 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian products.

“I think it’s something I’ll keep doing in the future,” he said. “The world is becoming a bit of a scary place and I think we need something to rally around. This is an easy one to pick.”

University of Manitoba political studies adjunct Prof. Christopher Adams said the flag has gone through a metamorphosis in Canadian culture in recent years, only for it to come back as the symbol of national pride.

When the country reckoned with the discovery of unmarked graves at residential schools much of the country stowed away the Canadian symbol in shame. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the flag was co-opted by the Freedom Convoy, further putting Canadians at odds with the maple leaf.

It’s taken external pressures to unite the country with the flag as its symbol, Adams said.

“Since being a little kid, I don’t remember anything like this; the flag suddenly is a thing that people rally around,” he said.

His last memory of such outward patriotism was the 1997 Quebec referendum when non-Quebec Canadians poured into the French province and begged voters not to separate.

Hyper-patriotism is usually reserved for Americans while Canadians are quieter about their national pride, Adams said.

“But now that we’ve got a president talking about becoming the 51st state and all that nonsense, I think outside pressures have suddenly made Canadians think about the value of their country,” he said.

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“It seems that when you have outside or pressures that threaten the wellbeing or the very core of our existence as a country, that’s when Canadians sort of stand up and take notice.”

Orlikow believes the patriotic streak seen across Canada will stick given Trump is just beginning his four-year presidential term, while Adams said he’ll be keeping an eye out for Canadians who take the flag and use it as a symbol for their own, more extreme agenda.

“Strong patriotism and rallying around the flag and all that sometimes it has a dark side to it,” he said.

“Canadians are sometimes suspicious about being overly enthusiastic about rallying around national symbols because we do notice sometimes it takes the wrong turn.”

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca

Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer

Nicole Buffie is a reporter for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom as a multimedia producer in 2023. Read more about Nicole.

Every piece of reporting Nicole produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.