Australian senator steps down because of dual Canadian citizenship

2017/07/19 Leave a comment

While a rule against dual citizenship for elected officials can be justified, this case highlights the absurdity of its formal application given that she left Canada when she was less than a year old and was caught by a Canadian rule change.

She does, of course, have the option of renouncing her Canadian citizenship but the process takes some time (don’t know how long but, if the example of Texas senator Ted Cruz is any indication, more than a few months).

Surprising, however, that she did not indicate her intent to renounce:

An Australian senator has been forced to step down because she is a dual citizen of Australia and Canada.

The Australian constitution disqualifies potential candidates from seeking election if they hold dual or plural citizenship.

Larissa Waters, who was also the deputy leader of the Green party, told a news conference Monday that was only found out about her status on Monday with “great shock and sadness.”

Waters was born to Australian parents in 1977 while they were studying and working in Winnipeg.

She left Canada as an 11-month-old baby and said she always believed she was just Australian.

Water said she also didn’t know she had to renounce the Canadian citizenship that was bestowed upon her at birth.

“I had not renounced since I was unaware that I was a dual citizen. Obviously this is something that I should have sought advice on when I first nominated for the Senate in 2007,” said Waters in a statement.

“I take full responsibility for this grave mistake and oversight. I am deeply sorry for the impact that it will have.”

Waters said she only discovered her status on Monday after seeking legal advice in the wake of fellow Green party member Scott Ludlam having to step down because he holds dual citizenship with New Zealand.

Waters said she was “devastated” to learn she was a Canadian citizen and has resigned from office “with a heavy heart.”

“I have lived my life thinking that as a baby I was naturalized to be Australian and only Australian, and my parents told me that I had until age 21 to actively seek Canadian citizenship,” said Waters.

“At 21, I chose not to seek dual citizenship, and I have never even visited Canada since leaving at 11 months old.”

Waters made international headlines earlier this year when she became the first woman to breastfeed her daughter, Alia, on the floor of the Australian Parliament.

Australian media reports say Waters was seen by some as a future leader of the Green party.

Source: Australian senator steps down because of dual Canadian citizenship – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Citizenship, Dual Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Synod slams high cost of British Citizenship – Migrants’ Rights Network

2017/07/18 Leave a comment

Could not agree more. Same issue (but to lesser extent) in Canada given five-fold increase in adult processing fee from $100 to $530 2014-15:

The cost of applying for citizenship in the UK is too high, unfair, and risks undoing the work of integration, General Synod was told at the annual gathering of the Church of England’s top decision-making body.

The Synod debate highlighted the issues faced by those with indefinite leave to remain in the UK who face a prohibitive cost – currently £1,282 for each adult – to apply for citizenship. Those who do not apply for citizenship but have indefinite leave to remain cannot vote in elections, have more limited travel options and cannot take up their full civic responsibilities, despite paying tax.

A motion, passed unanimously by Synod, asks the Archbishops’ Council to make recommendations to the Government on the issue, and encourages bishops in the House of Lords to address the issue in debates.

Ben Franks, the member of the House of Laity who initiated the debate, sad “Many of those who are eligible to apply for citizenship are working in the low-pay sectors of our economy due to their uncertain status making well paid employment more difficult. Many people save over years to pay for their applications, there are also those whose difficult situation leads them to go into long-term, high-interest debt from unscrupulous lenders to do so.”

Source: Synod slams high cost of British Citizenship – Migrants’ Rights Network

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Australian senator quits over New Zealand dual citizenship – BBC News

2017/07/15 Leave a comment

May explain in part relatively low levels of diversity among Australian politicians although I suspect other factors more important:

An Australian senator has resigned after realising he holds dual citizenship, meaning his nine-year parliamentary career most likely breached the nation’s constitution.

Scott Ludlam, from the minor Greens party, said he only learned of his New Zealand citizenship last week.

Under Australia’s constitution, a person cannot run for federal office if they hold dual or plural citizenship.

Mr Ludlam had been told his eligibility would be challenged in court.

The senator, who was also Greens co-deputy leader, apologised for what he called an “avoidable oversight”.

Source: Australian senator quits over New Zealand dual citizenship – BBC News

Filed under Citizenship, Dual Citizenship Tagged with ,

Federal Court voids Canadian citizenship revocation for 312 people

2017/07/14 Leave a comment

A second decision that reflects poorly on the Conservative government’s C-24 expedited revocation provisions (and that implements the earlier Federal Court decision – Canada can’t strip your citizenship without a trial, court rules – VICE News). It is, of course, part of a pattern where their policies and legislation were routinely ruled against by the courts.

One would hope that the policy and legal advice given to the government at the time highlighted the likely risk of adverse rulings.

Given the Conservative track record, their assertions regarding contesting the Khadr lawsuit should be taken with a grain of salt:

The Federal Court has nullified government attempts to strip Canadian citizenship from more than 300 people after an earlier judgment struck down key provisions of the Citizenship Act introduced by the former Conservative government under Stephen Harper.

The earlier ruling, in May, declared those provisions inoperative because they were an expedited process that deprived individuals of the right to an oral hearing and did not take into account humanitarian and compassionate considerations.

As a result, in a decision on Monday, Justice Russel Zinn voided the citizenship revocation of 312 individuals who had turned to the court after they were targeted in a sweep against people who had obtained their Canadian nationality through fraud.

Another 14 similar court requests, which had not been filed in a timely manner, can apply for a deadline extension, Justice Zinn ruled.

“It’s another judicial loss for the policies of the previous government,” Montreal lawyer Vincent Valaï, who represented some of the people in the case, said in an interview.

He noted that the Conservative government liked to say that obtaining Canadian citizenship is a privilege, not a right. However, the ruling in May said that once acquired, citizenship is a right.

“And because it is a right, you have to respect procedure fairness before revoking citizenship. That means the right to a hearing before an impartial judge,” Mr. Valaï said.

Another lawyer involved in the case, Matthew Jeffery, called the provisions in the law a “deeply flawed process.”

The government could start the revocation process against those people all over again but it would first have to rewrite the law to conform with the court rulings, Mr. Jeffery said.

The number of revocation cases began ballooning when Jason Kenney, who was immigration and citizenship minister in the Harper government, announced in 2012 that his department would cancel the citizenship of more than 3,000 people, in a crackdown against those who had faked the amount of time they have spent in Canada.

In February, 2014, the Harper government amended the Citizenship Act to fast-track the revocation process in what it called “non-complex” cases. It meant eliminating the right to a hearing for individuals when their citizenship had been obtained by fraud.

Several of the cases involved clients of Nizar Zakka, a Montreal immigration consultant who created a system to hide the fact that the clients were not residing in Canada for the required two-year minimum within a five-year span.

Faced with hundreds of applicants challenging their citizenship revocation, the Federal Court started with a review of eight lead cases while the other cases were held in suspension.

Last May, Justice Jocelyne Gagné ruled on the eight lead cases, striking down the new provisions for an expedited revocation process.

“They deprive the applicants of the right to a fair hearing in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice,” Justice Gagné wrote.

In one case that she highlighted, the government tried to revoke the citizenship of Fiji-born Thomas Gucake, who had come to Canada as a child and later served three tours in Afghanistan with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry regiment.

In 2015, Mr. Gucake received a notice of citizenship revocation because his father had failed to disclose a minor criminal conviction in Australia.

The current government has since amended the Act so that, by next year, the Federal Court would be the decision-maker in citizenship revocation cases.

Source: Federal Court voids Canadian citizenship revocation for 312 people – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with ,

Citizenship For Military Service Program Under Fire : NPR

2017/07/13 Leave a comment

The Conservative government introduced a comparable provision in C-24 (residency requirements were waived for military personnel who had served three years with an honourable release):

A debate has broken out at the Pentagon and in Congress over a proposal to dismantle an 8-year-old program that gives fast-track citizenship to immigrant soldiers who were recruited because they have critical skills in languages and medicine.

More than 4,000 immigrant soldiers recruited through the program — mostly from China and South Korea — are serving in uniform, including on overseas tours. Another 4,000 recruits have enlisted and are awaiting training.

The program is known as MAVNI, for Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest. It was frozen last year amid security concerns about inadequate vetting of the recruits.

Pentagon and national intelligence officials say the recruits could have connections to foreign intelligence services or become insider threats, according to an internal memo obtained by NPR. The officials also said it would be both expensive and time-consuming to investigate these recruits more carefully.

Those officials are now proposing additional scrutiny of soldiers already serving and dropping those who have not yet shipped to basic training or been assigned a military unit. Some could be deported because their visas have expired.

A Pentagon spokesman, Johnny Michael, would not comment on the memo or the program.

Win-win or security risk?

The proposal has stoked a debate over how to balance national security concerns with the need for specialized skills and how to keep faith with recruits who pledged to serve their adopted country.

Several Defense Department officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to discuss the program publicly, said mismanagement has been a problem.

In some cases, the officials said, the military didn’t use the MAVNI recruits effectively because they weren’t placed in jobs in which they used their language skills. And some recruits have been investigated for suspected ties to foreign spy agencies, one official said.

By some metrics, the program — which grants citizenship in exchange for eight years of honorable military service — has been successful.

According to a Pentagon breakdown, soldiers recruited through the program have educational levels that exceed the Army average, and their re-enlistment rates are higher than soldiers who are already citizens.

Most of the recruits with foreign language skills speak Chinese and Korean. The rest speak about three dozen other languages, ranging from Arabic and Thai to Indonesian, Turkish and Swahili.

The program also helps fill the medical ranks. About two-thirds of dentists in the Army Reserve are part of the MAVNI program. Others serve as nurses or hold other jobs in the Army Medical Corps.

One-third of the recruits have been in the United States for at least three or four years, according to the Pentagon’s breakdown, with one-quarter living in the U.S. for more than seven years.

One of those recruits is Jeevan Pendli, 34, who came to the U.S. from India on a student visa, earning a master’s degree from Carnegie-Mellon University. He stayed on a visa for tech workers and co-founded a company that helps people with chronic illnesses manage their health.

And last year he decided to join the Army, inspired after running the Marine Corps Marathon and seeing competitors in wheelchairs and using prosthetics.

“Things seemed fine when we signed and did the oath in May,” Pendli told NPR, “and it just fizzled out in a couple of weeks or months.”

Like some 2,000 other MAVNI recruits, Pendli is still waiting to be shipped to basic training.

That long wait is more than just an annoyance. If a recruit doesn’t make it to Army basic training by 730 days after signing a contract, the recruit “times out” and is kicked out before serving. Hundreds will reach that deadline by the end of the year. And each month after that hundreds more will “time out.”

No consensus in Congress

“Military recruits in the MAVNI program should not have to wonder whether the United States will honor the contract they signed,” wrote Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis.

“If we fail to hold up the contracts we made with MAVNI applicants, this will not only have a significantly deleterious effect on recruiting, it will also be met with a strong, swift Congressional reaction.”

But other lawmakers say there are legitimate concerns.

“Even with the MAVNI program, where it’s supposed to meet some of the vital national interests, the program has been replete with problems to include foreign infiltration, so much so that the Department of Defense is seeking to suspend the program due to those concerns,” said Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla., a retired Army officer, during a recent hearing on the defense policy bill.

“And I can’t really discuss some of that here in this setting, but there are some major issues when it comes to vetting,” said Russell, who serves on the Armed Services Committee.

In the next few weeks, Mattis is expected to receive final recommendations from Pentagon personnel and intelligence officials about the way ahead.

Source: Citizenship For Military Service Program Under Fire : NPR

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Former Canadian flag, the Red Ensign, gets new, darker life as far-right symbol | National Post

2017/07/12 Leave a comment

Sigh …:

When five members of the anti-immigration, alt-right Proud Boys strode into a Halifax park on Canada Day to confront Indigenous protesters, the Canadian flag they carried was more than 50 years out of date.

With a Union Jack in the corner and a coat of arms on a red background, the Canadian Red Ensign held aloft by one member has largely disappeared from public view since it was replaced in 1965 by the Maple Leaf.

But the Red Ensign, a variation of which Canadian troops fought under in both world wars, has recently taken on a darker symbolism, adopted as Canada’s equivalent of the Confederate flag by some extremists here.

The perversion of the Red Ensign was first observed among white supremacists, who saw it as a throwback to a time when Canadians were overwhelmingly white and of European extraction.

Anti-immigrant protests by the Aryan Guard in Calgary featured the Red Ensign as far back as 2008, and photos showed group members decorated their apartments with the flag alongside a Nazi flag and a Confederate flag.

When John Beattie, who founded the Canadian Nazi Party in the 1960s and remains a white supremacist, ran for municipal office in 2014, a reporter noted that he flew the Red Ensign flag at his home.

 Notorious white nationalist Paul Fromm has campaigned to have the Red Ensign returned as Canada’s flag, calling it “the flag of the true Canada, the European Canada before the treasonous European replacement schemes brought in by the 1965 immigration policies.”

Northern Dawn, a Canadian alt-right website launched last year to defend Western heritage against “chaos,” has used the Red Ensign as its Facebook cover photo. In a July 1 essay on the site, Gerry Neal decried the 1965 replacement of the Red Ensign with the current flag as evidence of a Liberal revision of national symbolism “to eliminate reference to our British heritage.”

Anti-Racist Canada has been tracking the growing popularity of the Red Ensign among extremist groups for years. A spokesperson, who for safety reasons asked to be identified only as Chris, said racists have adopted the Red Ensign “to represent a time when Canada was a ‘white man’s country.’ They view the flag that flies in Canada today as an abomination representing multiculturalism and diversity.

“If you attend any far-right rally or march in Canada, there is a very good chance that, along with ‘white pride,’ Nazi, and Confederate flags, you will also see the Red Ensign being flown rather than the Maple Leaf.”

For the Royal Canadian Legion, which flies the Red Ensign outside its headquarters and includes the flag in its official colour party, the idea that it has been adopted by extremists is hard to stomach.

“There is significant and genuine affection for the Red Ensign in the veterans’ community of Canada for the reason that wars were fought and lives were lost under that flag,” Bill Maxwell, secretary of the Legion’s Poppy and Remembrance Committee, said.

“Canadians fought for the freedoms we enjoy today. I don’t think they fought to have the Red Ensign denigrated in such a manner, quite frankly.”

Caitlin Bailey, executive director of the Canadian Centre for the Great War, in Montreal, said the Red Ensign was a symbol of unity as a young nation went to war. It was the flag that flew over Vimy Ridge to signal its 1917 capture by Canadian troops.

“It’s unfortunate that it has turned into a white nationalist symbol,” she said. “It’s not right, and it flies in the face of what the Red Ensign means.”

C.P. Champion, editor of the history journal the Dorchester Review, recently wrote in support of greater prominence for the Canadian Red Ensign, arguing it should fly permanently at the National War Memorial in Ottawa.

He said in an interview that he was disappointed when the self-described traditionalists of the Proud Boys were captured on video provoking Indigenous protesters with the flag.

“It looked like it was trivializing, or treating as a kind of talisman of defiance, a flag that has a much more venerable and mainstream role,” Champion said. “I’ve always thought it’s important not to let traditional symbols be appropriated by fringe elements.”

Source: Former Canadian flag, the Red Ensign, gets new, darker life as far-right symbol | National Post

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

What is the difference between nationality and citizenship? The Economist

2017/07/11 Leave a comment

Useful clarification of the nuance although less applicable in the Canadian context compared to the UK and USA (where we do not have distinct categories of citizenship – with the major difference being voting rights for non-residents):

IN OCTOBER, when Theresa May’s political future still looked bright, the British prime minister chastised her opponents: “If you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means.” In their defence, the concept of citizenship is complex, especially when compared with the similarly complicated idea of nationality. What is the difference between the two?

In general, to be a national is to be a member of a state. Nationality is acquired by birth or adoption, marriage, or descent (the specifics vary from country to country). Having a nationality is crucial for receiving full recognition under international law. Indeed, Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that “Everyone has the right to a nationality” and “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality” but is silent on citizenship. Citizenship is a narrower concept: it is a specific legal relationship between a state and a person. It gives that person certain rights and responsibilities. It does not have to accompany nationality. In some Latin American countries, for example, such as Mexico, a person acquires nationality at birth but receives citizenship only upon turning 18: Mexican children, therefore, are nationals but not citizens.

Similarly, not all American nationals are also American citizens. People born in the “outlying possessions of the United States” can get an American passport and live and work in the United States, but cannot vote or hold elected office. In the past, these “outlying possessions” included Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, but in the 20th century Congress gradually extended citizenship to their inhabitants. Today, only American Samoa and Swains Island stand apart: the latter is a tiny atoll in the Pacific ocean, barely more than five meters above sea level, which, in 2010, had a population of just 17.

In Britain, thanks to the legacy of colonialism, the situation is even more complicated. There are six types of British nationality: British citizens, British subjects, British overseas citizens, British overseas territories citizens, British overseas nationals, or British protected persons. Sometimes it is possible to switch categories: for instance, before the British handed Hong Kong over to the Chinese on 1st July 1997, some British overseas territories citizens registered as British overseas nationals. These overseas nationals hold British passports and can receive protection from British diplomats, but they do not have the automatic right to live or work in Britain. So in Britain, there are several types of citizenship and some nationals who are not citizens at all. The targets of Mrs May’s ire are likely to have good company in not fully grasping the meaning of the word “citizenship”.

Source: What is the difference between nationality and citizenship?

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Bahrain is stripping dissidents of their citizenship, and the U.S. is silent – The Washington Post

2017/07/10 Leave a comment

Another example of revocation being used to political ends:

The tiny island kingdom of Bahrain is increasingly turning to a particularly draconian tool of repression: stripping dissidents of their citizenship.

Rights activists say authorities have revoked the citizenship of 103 people so far this year, already more than in 2016. All were convicted of terrorism-related crimes in trials that rights activists say lacked due process and transparency.

The pace of citizenship revocations has increased amid an intensifying crackdown on opposition. And activists charge that the silence of the West, particularly the United States and Britain, has emboldened authorities to press ahead with more repressive measures than the kingdom has employed since the response to mass protests in 2011.

“There’s absolutely zero pressure for them to reform or do anything that’s less than repressive,” said Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy and one of those deprived of his citizenship. That attitude was clear, he said, when President Trump reassured the king of Bahrain at a meeting in May that there would be no “strain” in their relationship.

“This was an indicator that human rights is absolutely not part of the U.S. interests,” Alwadaei said.

An official at the Bahraini Embassy in Britain said authorities revoke citizenship “in the aim of preserving security and stability while countering threats of terrorism.”

“Revoking citizenship is only done in accordance with the provisions of the law, in cases where the person involved were engaged in activities that has caused damage to the interest of the Kingdom and its national security,” the official said in an email, responding to questions on the condition of anonymity.

Bahrain, an archipelago in the Persian Gulf that is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, has a majority-Shiite population but is governed by a Sunni monarchy. In 2011, thousands of protesters demanding democratic reforms were met with a brutal crackdown and mass arrests. International pressure led to an inquiry that documented allegations of torture and violations by security forces, and recommended reforms.

But that pressure has largely evaporated, and the government has recently taken the crackdown to new lengths, dissolving political groups and the kingdom’s last independent newspaper. Many activists and opposition figures have been jailed, and security forces killed five protesters in a raid on a demonstration in May.

Source: Bahrain is stripping dissidents of their citizenship, and the U.S. is silent – The Washington Post

Filed under Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with

Applicants for US Citizenship Surge; Mexicans Least Likely to Apply

2017/07/08 Leave a comment

Different trend in Canada. Country of origin differences interesting – expect that one reason for lower take-up rates for Mexican immigrants is related to the high cost of US citizenship (about CAD 1,000):

The number of legal immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship has surged by more than 20 percent since 2015, according to a recent Pew Research study – with Mexicans the least likely to apply.

Applications for citizenship were up by 21 percent in the first half of this year at 525,000, compared to the same period in 2016 when 435,000 applied, the report found.

The total number of applications in 2016 was 972,000, 24 percent higher than the approximately 800,000 who applied in 2015.

According to the report, in 2015 there were 45 million immigrants living in the U.S., of whom 11.9 million were “lawful permanent residents holding green cards.”

Among those green card holders, 9.3 million were eligible to apply for citizenship.

Of the 9.3 million, 37 percent or 3.4 million were of Mexican origin, but they were the least likely of all immigrant groups to seek naturalization.

In 2015, 67 percent of all lawful immigrants living in the U.S. and eligible for citizenship had applied – but for Mexicans the rate was considerably lower – 42 percent. That rate hasn’t changed much since then, the report found.

In comparison to the 42 percent of eligible Mexicans applying, 83 percent of those from the Middle East applied and 74 percent of those from Africa.

Middle Eastern immigrants had the highest naturalization rate among all immigrant origin groups, while African immigrants accounted for the largest increase in naturalization rate in the last decade, according to the report.

The report’s research is based on U.S. census data, a year-round survey of 3.5 million households, and a monthly survey of 55,000 households.

Source: Report: Applicants for US Citizenship Surge; Mexicans Least Likely to Apply

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

ICYMI – the Duck: The maple leaf flag embodies Canada’s national amnesia | C.P. Champion

2017/07/06 Leave a comment

Historian and former CPC staffer Champion on the current and former flags (under former Minister Jason Kenney, the Red Ensign was displayed at some citizenship ceremonies if memory serves me correct but the Conservative government declined to provide it more official status as Champion recommends):

There is much to celebrate on Canada’s 150th, and there will be no shortage of Canadian flags fluttering about. But the maple leaf flag is also the perfect embodiment of our national amnesia.

Unlike Canada’s original flag—the Canadian Red Ensign—the maple leaf tells no story of our country. The Red Ensign, by comparison, vividly embodies Canada’s rich history, inclusive of First Nations, the fleur-de-lis, and the diversity represented by Scottish, English and Irish symbols.

This history dates back much further than 1867. Canada’s traditions were shaped by the first colonists, the Conquest of 1759, the policies of Lord Dorchester, the resilience of His Majesty’s new French Catholic subjects, generations of American and British immigrants, and First Nations who prospered in the pre-Industrial era and understood themselves as proud, though cautious, allies of the King.

Jon Fogg, Saint James Marine operator, left, and his daughter-in-law Wendy Fogg, unfurl the original Canadian Red Ensign flag that flew over the S.S. Keewatin. Darren Calabrese/National Post

When these old colonies were reimagined and set on a new footing in the 1860s, four distinct Provincial shields were combined on the Red Ensign, which was flown by Sir John A. Macdonald. Lord Stanley, the governor-general, and Henri Bourassa, a French Canadian nationalist, both recognized the Red Ensign as a distinctive Canadian flag. After 1921, the flag bore the shield from Canada’s new coat of arms.

When Canadian soldiers took Juno Beach on June 6, 1944 (D-Day) they carried this Canadian flag ashore. Through Normandy and the Netherlands, between the Maas and the Rhine, under the Klever Tor at Xanten, in liberated Nijmegen, Arnhem, and Groningen: as the Reich flag was lowered across Western Europe, the Canadian flag was unfurled among the banners of victory. In 1945, there could be no doubt that “Canada had a flag,” as John Diefenbaker later said, “a flag ennobled by heroes’ blood.”

The Red Ensign was replaced by the red maple leaf in 1964, recommended in the sixth report of a parliamentary committee, voted for by 178 MPs in a discordant House of Commons, and implemented by a minority government led by a jittery Lester Pearson. Why the jitters? Because the old flag was so popular. As Senator Marcel Prud’homme, an M.P. in 1964, told me in 2007: “You see, we had to kill the Red Ensign” — so that the fledgling maple would have no rival.

Many celebrated the new dawn. The late Lt. Gen. Charles Belzile, who witnessed the maple’s raising for the first time while serving as a young soldier in Cyprus in 1965, told me: “It sure looked pretty good against those green hills!”

But the new flag also had its critics. Historian Marcel Trudel warned in 1964 that Canada’s new flag had “no historic significance” and was “a lamentable failure.” “I am convinced, for my part,” he said, “that any flag, if it is to be truly significant, must contain or represent the symbols of the nation or nations which contributed to establishing the country.”

First Nations leaders were strongly attached to the old flag. James Gladstone, a Blood (Kainai) appointed to the Senate in 1958 said: “Personally I do not want to see any other flag flying but the Red Ensign.” Many chiefs had received a Union Jack as a ceremonial seal on treaties: “Under these symbols of justice, we feel safe. Take them away from us and it will be another sign that we are not safe.”

While the national flag is obviously here to stay, Ottawa should accord the old flag official status as “The Canadian Red Ensign.” It should fly permanently alongside the Canadian flag at the National War Memorial — after all, it’s the flag our soldiers actually fought under. It should fly at war memorials everywhere, and at obvious locations such as the Canadian War Museum grounds. And finally, a Red Ensign should wave permanently above the East Block of Parliament as a symbol of our heritage of freedom.

Source: Beyond the Duck: The maple leaf flag embodies Canada’s national amnesia | National Post

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →