The Flag of Our Fathers? The Manitoba Provincial Flag and British Cultural Hegemony in Manitoba, 1870–1966

Abstract

In February 2015, Canada celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Canadian flag. Since its inception, the prevailing narrative of the advent of the modern Canadian flag describes the event as an important, iconic stage of nationalist evolution from British colony to independent nation. At the moment of its genesis, however, this was not a universal sentiment; the detractors of the new Canadian flag were legion. The debate surrounding the adoption of the flag was acrimonious and fierce, and in the end only the defection of the Québec caucus of the Progressive Conservative Party to support the governing Liberal Party’s new flag design ensured that it was adopted at all. The story of the national flag debate, as the episode came to be known, is well-trodden ground; less well known is the reaction in several provinces to the lack of British symbolism in the new national flag. Shortly after the modern Canadian flag was hoisted for the first time on Parliament Hill, the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba adopted provincial flags that retained British symbolism in the form of a modified Red Ensign; a design which had been used in both official and unofficial capacities as the national flag of Canada for several decades. This paper will focus on a little known chapter in Canadian history—the adoption of the provincial flag of Manitoba as a protest against the new Canadian flag.