[em TT

Some French Canadian Nationalists demand the
Some English-speaking

feudal fleur-de-lys (left).

ne en | RR Df

sections demand the imperial Union Jack (right).

The flag at centre draws on Canadian symbols.

—Why not a Canadian flag ?—

Y don’t we have our own

flag? This question will be
asked in thousands of homes
across the country this Canada
Day. And it is a fact that adop-
tion of a distinctly national Can-
adian flag would be a symbol of
our maturing national conscious-
ness of ourselves as Canadians —
a symbol to which the people
would give real meaning by their
patriotic struggle as against the
efforts of our ruling circles to
use it as a mask for betraying
our heritage to the United States.

At the end of the Second
World War, conscious of Can-
ada’s enhanced position in inter-
national affairs, parliament es-
tablished a committee to exam-
ine proposals for a Canadian
flag.” The effort unfortunately
was stillborn.

Because no real attempt was

made to draw the people into the
discussions, the ruling circles of
our country monopolised the is-
sue of symbolic expression.
» Some French Canadian nation-
alist elements, looking to the
past rather than the future, in-
sisted- that the flag should show
the old feudal fleur-de-lys and
nothing else. Influential sections
of English-speaking Canadians
were adamant in their demand
for inclusion of the imperial
Union Jack. It soon became clear
that nothing much could come of
this sectional and un-Canadian
approach.

In fact, the issue became far
more embarrassing to the old-
line politicians who had raised
it than having to evade the in-
sistent questioning of those who
want a Canadian flag.

And who wants a Canadian
flag if not the working people of
Canada, whose consciousness of
themselves as Canadians is grow-
ing as they became aware of how
the Liberal government, the Con-
‘servative opposition, abetted by
the top leaders of the CCF and
Social Credit, have surrendered
our independence to the clay-
footed colossus to the south? Ob-
viously, our ruling circles have
no interest in a Canadian flag
except as an empty symbol to
allay popular alarm and as a
means of disguising their betray-
al of our heritage to the U.S. ©

The demand. for a Canadian
flag must come now from the
people, who cannot satisfy them-

selves nor answer the question
of their children: “Why don’t we
have our own flag?”

But what kind of flag, and how
best ‘can it symbolize Canada? _

The Union Jack is repugnant
to the great majority of French
Canadians. The fleur-de-lys is
not acceptable to large sections
of English - speaking Canadians.
A combination of the two must
inevitably lead to dispute as to

which should have priority, in

addition to being a reflection of
Anglo-French chauvinism. More-

_ over, it would perpetuate the his-

torical gaping wound of Cana-
dian disunity. ;

By the same token, to go fur-
thér and include the traditiortal
emblems of other countries —
the rose of England, the thistle
of SCotland, the harp of Wales
and the shamrock of Ireland —
would logically require inclusion
of emblems of all countries

whose emigrants have contribut-
ed to the building of Canada and
the making of her people. And
who would have better claim to
inclusion than our Native Indian
people?

One concept of a Canadian
flag is ilustrated on this page.
Its starting point-is not the tra-
ditional. emblems of the English,
French or any other peoples but
what is already and can prop-
erly become emblematic of Can-
ada.

The size dimension is eight. to
five, which is an age-old mathe-
matical association. The back-
ground is green, which is the
traditional color associated with
life and hope.

Imposed in’ the‘ upper left
hand corner is the Polar North
star, its indication established by
several smaller stars below it
representing the constellation of
the Big Dipper or Drinking

Gourd. The stars are in silver
in contrast to the green back-
ground.

In the fly of the flag or near
centre is a bronze or russet
maple leaf, an emblem which fig-
ured prominently in a large num-
ber of the designs submitted to
the parliamentary committee
some years ago.

Choice of a maple leaf is logi-
cal, for it is historically woven
into Canadian culture. The North
Star suggests itself as the new
prime symbol in that it stands
for the future bright destiny of
our great north country coming
into its own and is acceptable to
all Canadians.

The North Star guided the
early explorers whose search for
the Northwest Passage opened
Canada to settlement and devel-
opment.
companion of the.pioneers, the
voyageurs and the frontiersmen.
It was the beacon of freedom for:
the escaping slaves of the south

It was the familiar -

as they fled orchard in their
time to Canada, the land of re
fuge.. “Follow, follow the drink-
ing gourd.”

The lines of our national al
them sing of “The true North,
strong and free,” and it was not
for nothing that Shakespeare, —
the great‘ master of symbolism,
wrote these words in his play 00
Caesar:

“|. . constand as the Northern

"star,

Of whose true fix’d and resting
quality :

There is no fellow in the firma:
ment.”

But, appropriate as these sym
bols are for a Canadian flag, they

“must remain empty until the

Canadian people, in strugglé 10
restore their independence an
develop their country in theif
own interests make Canada in
deed ‘The true North, strong and F

free.”
L.E.

Injustice to Canada

(Continued from page )

Railway was not constructed un-
til 1905. The Hudson’s Bay
Company had built Fort Yukon
in Russian territory in 1847. No
effort had been made to settle
the territory (in 1867 the popu-
lation, exclusive of Indians and
Eskimos, was only 264 Russians

- and 244 halfbreeds) and the al-

ternative, as settlers pressed
northward and westward across
the continent, was either a Rus-
sian policy -of settlement and de-
velopment or eventual loss of
the territory.

Traditional policies of Russian-
American friendship, based upon
a common interest in opposing
British imperialism, dictated the
U.S. as the logical purchaser, al-
thoughesome Russian circles felt
that the aims of the American
expansionists made the US.
hardly more welcome than Brit-
ain as a neighbor across the
Bering Strait.

e \

The Alaska Boundary Dispute

of 1903, brought to a head by

discovery of gold on the Klon-
dyke, was concerned only with

interpreting “sinuosities of the
coast” and “crest of the moun-
tains” in order to fix a boundary,
and the most favorable interpre-
tation could do no more than
modify the’ basic antagonism to
Canada by giving her the heads
of some_ inlets.

The negotiatious were note-
worthy for President Theodore
Roosevelt’s arrogance and con-
tempt for Canadian rights—_the
U.S. arrogance today apparent
in every field of policy—and the
sacrifice of Canadian interests by
the British representative.

Roosevelt, having appointed
two notorious jingoists, Senator
Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachu-
setts and Senator George Turner
of Washington, to an interna-
tional commission composed of
three Americans, two Canadians
and one Briton, proceeded to

threaten Canada and Britain. .

Through a letter to Mr. Justic
Holmes of the U.S. Supreme
Court he wrote “that if there is
any disagreement—not only will
there be no arbitration of the
matter but in my message to
Congress I shall take a position
which will prevent any possi-

commissioner,

‘the mountain line,

bility hereafter . . . and which
will give me the authority to
run the line as we claim it with-
out any further regard to the
agige of England and Can-
a a8

Lord Alverstone, the British
having privately
upheld at least some of the Can-
adian claims, signed the’ majori-
ty report of.the three Americans.
Supported by an aroused. public
opinion in Canada, Louis A. Jette
and Allen B. Aylesworth, the two
Canadians, took the wunprece-
dented action of refusing to sign
the award, stating in their minor-
ity report that they could “not
consider the.finding of the trib-
unal as to the islands, entrance
to the Portland Canal or as to
a judicial
one.”

A comment by the Rossland
Miner succinctly registered Can-
adian reaction: “Perhaps we

'should be thankful there is no

territory left which grasping
Americans can reach for and
complaisant British commission-
ers give away.”

e *

The boundary must inevitably

become an issue again in the

future because the very exist
ence of the Panhandle, designed
solely to protect one fur-trading
monopoly. against another, has
long ceased to have any economic ©
validity. The illogically draw? —
boundary, cutting across the feW
natural routes inland through 2 —
mountainous terrain, serves
neither the interests of B.C. nor
the Panhandle itself, which iS
cut off except by sea and alt
from, the rest of the continent.

The future development ‘of |
northwestern B.C. and the Yuk
on demands access to the coast
And the Panhandle faces the
problem that the only feasible
routes for highways ‘necessary

to open up the country to dé

velopment run throtigh Canadian"
territory—either by way of Fil
lay Forks and over the sifton

Pass or through Fort St. James;

Telegraph Creek and Atlin.

This is the heritage of the nase
that will pose a future probl em
for a’ people’s government—a?
only a people’s goNernneye cat :
solve it.

y

SS aes

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 3, 1953 — PAGE 10