On a superb day in February, Debbie Hartlen may promote one Canadian flag at her workshop in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Now, every 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 together with his repeated requires america to annex Canada — have the nation’s flag makers struggling to maintain up with instantly hovering demand.
“Isn’t it fantastic?,” 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 creating 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 america and flags are typically 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 practically a month in 2022 in response to Covid restrictions.
Because of this, many Canadians have shied away from displaying their nationwide flag out of concern that they might be seen as endorsing the protests.
However issues began to alter as Flag Day in Canada, which is widely known on Feb. 15, approached. Often, 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 referred to as on Canadians “to indicate the flag as by no means earlier than.”
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 in the course of the winter. And all through the nation, Canadians are doing one thing many not often do: flying flags exterior their houses.
L’étendard Flags and Banners, an organization primarily based in Quebec Metropolis, makes about 25,000 Canadian flags for the federal authorities and 10,000 extra for different clients 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 12 months demand for flags is so excessive that the corporate may have to rent further 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 practically 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 have 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 consequence, he mentioned, was that Canada first used Britain’s Union Jack, which is formally often known as the royal union flag, as its nationwide flag. In 1892, the British Admiralty formally allowed Canadian industrial ships to fly a crimson flag that was often known as the Canadian Purple Ensign, with the Union Jack in a single nook and a smaller protect of Canada that underwent many design adjustments.
Quickly, the Canadian Purple Ensign was getting used on land, significantly by the navy throughout World Conflict 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.
Varied committees at numerous instances thought of hundreds 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.
However it was Lester B. Pearson, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his work resolving the Suez disaster and previous Liberal prime minister, who in the end chosen the one Maple Leaf design.
However it was a tough promote at first. The debate in Parliament to undertake 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 permitted, Canadians shortly warmed to their new flag, Dr. Go mentioned.
Throughout the Vietnam Conflict, anecdotal tales about American vacationers stitching maple leaf patches onto their backpacks earlier than heading overseas turned a supply of cross-border resentment, significantly given Canada’s sturdy opposition to the warfare.
However the protests in Ottawa, which turned often known as the trucker convoy — and that polls confirmed most Canadians strongly opposed — harm the nation’s romance with its flag.
“The co-option of the flag by a small phase of the inhabitants created loads of discomfort for Canadians,” mentioned Heather Nicol, the director of the Canadian research college at Trent College in Peterborough, Ontario. “Lots of people felt like: ‘Properly I don’t know if we wish to take a look at that flag or fly that flag once more.’”
Nonetheless, in a single downtown Ottawa neighborhood that endured the ear splitting, late night time 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’s 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 an emblem for sure individuals. I respect this flag. It’s an emblem 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 comply with his instance and begin displaying the flag.
“All over the place, any time, all of the 12 months,” Mr. Hudson mentioned earlier than hemming some trousers. “That is our I.D.”
