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(LifeSiteNews) — One of the genuinely humorous aspects of the Freedom Convoy earlier this year, when hundreds of truckers and thousands of people descended on Ottawa for a weeks-long protest of government vaccine mandates, was how upset Canada’s progressive elites were by the sight of such flagrant dissent. Progressives like to boast about how Canada is filled with people who think just like them; small-c conservatives are rare, social conservatives are pariahs, and above all, Canadians are unlike Americans in every way—no flag-waving for us.
So when Canadian flags starting flapping from overpasses across the country and vehicles festooned with the Maple Leaf parked up and down Wellington Avenue on Parliament Hill, columnists mourned the “hijacking” of the Canadian flag. The flag, they told us (four times in the pages of the Toronto Star alone), was now a contested symbol. Why? Because people they disagreed with—Canadians, specifically—had waved it while saying things they disagreed with. This, they told us, was unCanadian, and the Canadians who had waved the flag were also unCanadian, because they were not the sort of Canadians that Official Canadians who worked for the media approved of.
The period of shock and mourning has now worn off, and the Canadian media elites have turned their attention to explaining why Tamara Lich should remain locked up. They are now proposing solutions to the desecration of the Canadian flag, despite the fact that this is a solution without a problem and nobody cares. Exhibit A is another recent editorial in the Toronto Star titled “One Way to Reclaim the Canadian Flag as a Symbol of Diversity and Inclusiveness.” This editorial is necessary, you see, because progressives were stunned to discover that there is diversity of opinion in Canada when it comes to vaccine mandates, and that is the sort of diversity that is unCanadian and must be stomped out.
The column was written by Timothy Dewhirst who, predictably, works for an institution of higher learning (he’s a professor and senior research fellow in marketing and public policy at the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics at the University of Guelph). The presence of the Canadian flag at the Freedom Convoy, he wrote, makes it “unclear whether those displaying the flag feel satisfied about their country’s governance or prevailing values” and thus has been “regrettably co-opted” by those “opposing mandates [and]…wearing masks.” As such, Dewhirst writes (without a shred of evidence, I might add), “numerous Canadians have become hesitant to brandish the Canadian flag” because they “don’t want to risk being misidentified as a supporter of the Freedom Convoy and their world view.”
READ: Medical journal survey finds ‘vaccine hesitancy’ at higher rates for Canadian nurses, paramedics
Dewhirst then goes on to note that Donald Trump is a fan of the American flag, which is relevant somehow because Trump is scary and Canadians are presumably as scared of him as Dewhirst. Because American flags flap at Trump rallies, he writes, “many U.S. liberals are now tentative about brandishing their flag.” (A more observant professor might have noted that their tentativeness far predates Trump, but whatever.) After concocting this fictious problem, Dewhirst poses a question: “So, how do Canadians and Americans reclaim their flags, and clearly communicate the values they would like symbolized?”
His answer is predictable and pathetic:
One possibility is the co-display of flags whereby “co-branding” is exercised. The idea is to seek symbols that can be perceived as strong complements and signal the values desirable to be aligned with.
In practice, such an approach was observable when walking past the Canadian embassy in Seoul, Korea during the July 1 holiday weekend. A more sizable rainbow flag was visible alongside the Canadian flag.
While the rainbow or pride flag is a symbol of the LGBT community, the commonly associated proclamation “Love Is Love” has wider applicability. The co-display of flags, near the building’s front entrance, cues that Canada aspires to be a nation of diversity and inclusiveness. Through co-branding, the Canadian flag can be effectively reclaimed.
I wonder what Dewhirst will do when he discovers that while 71% of Canadians of European descent (that is, white Canadians) agree with him on what the rainbow flag represents, a mere 44% of Canadians with East Asian background and 42% of Canadians of South Asian descent support the idea of same-sex marriage. As it turns out, Canada is a very diverse place—except for the class that Dewhirst is a part of, which is both homogenous and remarkably airtight. When folks like him discover that other folks also live under the same flag, he cannot bear it. That is the wrong sort of Diversity, and it must be crushed.
READ: Joe Rogan calls Trudeau gov’t ‘communist,’ urges Canadians to ‘get rid of that guy’
