On a superb day in February, Debbie Hartlen may promote one Canadian flag at her workshop in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Now, day by day gross sales have hit roughly 300 flags, and that’s not counting her bigger on-line enterprise.
President Trump’s plan to impose crippling tariffs on Canadian exports are seen as a devastating risk to many Canadian companies and staff. His warning on commerce — mixed along with his repeated requires the US to annex Canada — have the nation’s flag makers struggling to maintain up with all of the sudden hovering demand.
“Isn’t it great?,” mentioned Ms. Hartlen, who owns The Flag Store Nova Scotia. “Thanks, Trump. Who would have thought we’d be saying that?”
The renewed curiosity in Canada’s maple leaf flag, fueled by intense opposition to Mr. Trump’s thought of constructing Canada the 51st state and his financial threats, comes because the crimson and white Canadian banner marks its sixtieth anniversary.
And for a nation the place flag waving is much less part of life than in the US and flags are usually much less conspicuous, the Trump-fueled resurgence of Canadian patriotism has additionally revived the Canadian flag’s picture.
The maple leaf flag, typically flown the other way up or from hockey sticks, turned the defining image utilized by protesters who occupied and paralyzed Ottawa, Canada’s capital, for almost a month in 2022 in response to Covid restrictions.
In consequence, many Canadians have shied away from displaying their nationwide flag out of concern that they’d be seen as endorsing the protests.
However issues began to alter as Flag Day in Canada, which is well known on Feb. 15, approached. Normally, the day passes by largely unnoticed. This time, in opposition to the backdrop of tariff threats and Mr. Trump’s criticisms of Canada, together with referring to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Governor Trudeau, 5 former prime minsters have known as on Canadians “to show the flag as never before.”
The federal government held sixtieth birthday celebrations, which included skaters holding aloft a large flag down a nineteenth century canal in Ottawa that doubles as a large ice skating rink throughout the winter. And all through the nation, Canadians are doing one thing many hardly ever do: flying flags exterior their properties.
L’étendard Flags and Banners, an organization based mostly in Quebec Metropolis, makes about 25,000 Canadian flags for the federal authorities and 10,000 extra for different prospects and makes use of what is often the sluggish winter season to construct up stock main as much as Canada Day on July 1.
This yr demand for flags is so excessive that the corporate might have to rent additional staff to deal with the surge, mentioned Mario Trahan, one of many firm’s homeowners.
“There’s a peak simply earlier than the July 1 but it surely’s at all times the identical sample yearly,” mentioned Mr. Trahan, whose firm has been within the flag enterprise for 30 years. “However we haven’t seen a rush like this.”
Earlier than the present model of the flag was adopted, Canada had spent almost a century making an attempt to create and agree on a nationwide flag that was not merely carried over from its previous as a British colony.
“English Canadians particularly had been divided about their id,” mentioned Forrest Go, a vexillologist, or flag scholar, at Library and Archives Canada, the nationwide archive. “British imperial id nonetheless loomed giant.”
The outcome, he mentioned, was that Canada first used Britain’s Union Jack, which is formally referred to as the royal union flag, as its nationwide flag. In 1892, the British Admiralty formally allowed Canadian business ships to fly a crimson flag that was referred to as the Canadian Purple Ensign, with the Union Jack in a single nook and a smaller protect of Canada that underwent many design changes.
Quickly, the Canadian Purple Ensign was getting used on land, notably by the navy throughout World Battle I, earlier than gaining official standing in 1946.
Many Canadians regarded the crimson ensign as principally a “place holder,” mentioned Dr. Go, whose dissertation was on flags.
Numerous committees at numerous instances thought-about 1000’s of proposed Canadian flags, together with one, Dr. Go mentioned, that featured a girl in a bikini.
“It was one thing of a cottage trade, the manufacturing of latest flag designs,” he mentioned.
Nevertheless it was Lester B. Pearson, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his work resolving the Suez disaster and previous Liberal prime minister, who finally chosen the only Maple Leaf design.
Nevertheless it was a tough promote at first. The debate in Parliament to adopt it was described by one historian as “among the many ugliest within the Home of Commons historical past” due to the sturdy opposition from members of Parliament to diluting British heritage.
However as soon as the controversy was settled and the design accredited, Canadians shortly warmed to their new flag, Dr. Go mentioned.
In the course of the Vietnam Battle, anecdotal tales about American vacationers stitching maple leaf patches onto their backpacks earlier than heading overseas turned a supply of cross-border resentment, notably given Canada’s sturdy opposition to the conflict.
However the protests in Ottawa, which turned referred to as the trucker convoy — and that polls confirmed most Canadians strongly opposed — damage the nation’s romance with its flag.
“The co-option of the flag by a small section of the inhabitants created a variety of discomfort for Canadians,” mentioned Heather Nicol, the director of the Canadian research faculty at Trent College in Peterborough, Ontario. “Lots of people felt like: ‘Effectively I don’t know if we need to have a look at that flag or fly that flag once more.’”
Nonetheless, in a single downtown Ottawa neighborhood that endured the ear splitting, late evening air horn honking by protesting truckers, Sam Hudson by no means took down the 4 Canadian flags that largely cowl the window of the tailor store he opened 15 years in the past after emigrating from Jordan. (There may be additionally a Scottish flag within the window in honor of his first buyer.)
“I saved them as a result of they’re the image for our nation,” Mr. Hudson mentioned. “It’s not a logo for sure individuals. I respect this flag. It’s a logo for 40 million individuals who stay on this land.”
Now with Mr. Trump’s denigration of Canada, Mr. Hudson mentioned he needs extra Canadians to observe his instance and begin displaying the flag.
“All over the place, any time, all of the yr,” Mr. Hudson mentioned earlier than hemming some trousers. “That is our I.D.”
