Geoff Russ has excellently taken a sledgehammer to the mythos of Diefenbaker, but there is one point I dispute, and that is blaming Quebec, or the political influence of French Canada, for the changing of the flag.
The argument that Quebec “carried the day” against Anglo Canada on the Red Ensign badly oversimplifies the flag debate. Pearson’s flag was not just imposed by Quebec or French Canada.
Christopher Champion’s account is much closer to the mark. The Maple Leaf was pushed through by a small group of Anglo Canadian Liberals who despised Canada’s British and French settler colonial history and founding narrative. As early as the 1940s, Liberals like Jack Pickersgill were promoting the idea that Canada was fundamentally “a nation of immigrants”. Pierre Trudeau himself, famously said
“French Canadians do not give a tinker’s damn about the flag. It’s a matter of complete indifference.”
Quebec was a bystander. The drive for a new flag came principally from Pearson, his government, and a section of the Anglo Canadian political elite that sought new national symbols for a new conception of Canada. Quebec was frequently invoked as a justification for change, but it was not the force that brought the Red Ensign down. The same way they exploited the royal commission on biculturalism and bilingualism to get French Canada on-side, before dropping it for third world migration and the cultural mosaic.
The real conflict wasn’t French Canada versus Anglo Canada. It was between Canadians who understood Canada as a historic British and French settler colonial nation and an emerging liberal globalist establishment trying to redefine Canada as a post national economic zone. The Maple Leaf triumphed because that establishment gained control of the political machinery of the country, not because Quebec imposed its will on an unwilling Anglo Canadian majority.
Ironically, French Canadians themselves had demonstrated a greater willingness to preserve their historical symbols than the very treasonous Anglo Canadian elites who were dismantling their own.
Quebec did not abandon the Fleurdelisé, its heroes, its historical memory, or its sense of national continuity. Some French Canadians preferred the Red Ensign because the fleur de lis was on it, and they felt represented. The people most determined to sever Canada from its inherited symbols were overwhelmingly found within the Anglo Canadian political class itself.
If one wishes to criticize the replacement of the Red Ensign, the criticism should be directed at the Anglo Canadian Liberal establishment that engineered the change, not at French Canada. Quebec did not stab Anglo-Canada in the back. Pearson and the federal liberals did.
@alty5745@visegrad24 The couple in the picture are literally a right wing nationalist who might become president of France and a descendant of Italian royalty who supports his politics. Tf are you on about?
Those Western conservatives complaining about Quebec's language laws and how they supposedly oppress Anglo-Quebecers, just remember they will never return the favour.
John Diefenbaker is canonized by the Canadian right as both a hero who smashed the Liberals at the ballot box and a martyr to foreign interference.
Yet he was also an ineffective prime minister. Driven by deeply personal motives, he undermined Canadian nationalism and squandered a generational opportunity to reshape the country after 22 years of Liberal rule. In many ways, he exemplified the self-defeating tendencies of the postwar Progressive Conservatives.
Ultimately, Diefenbaker was more a precursor to Pierre Trudeau than a conservative maverick. He had admirable qualities, but he was no titan, and he is not an icon to be emulated.
My latest in @WDiminishment.
https://t.co/kQCCZJLpRt
“We are deeply shocked and concerned by the scenes that we’ve seen today on our streets across the six counties, on the island of Ireland. We abhor - and strongly condemn - all forms of political violence. Political violence never gets you anywhere”
@User729 Additionally, nearly all European descended Canadians from the time period you're talking about are going to have some Anglo-Celtic admixture. So, no the prairies aren't German, that isn't anti white, it's just a fact.
Diefenbaker is a complicated figure for me as a nationalist because he was the last PM who believed in Canada as an imperial Anglo-French project and clearly got snubbed for resisting Washington, but also he was also pretty bad in some other ways.
@User729 It's literally just not the case. In one province, Saskatchewan, Germans are the largest self-identified European origin at 25%, but English, Scottish, and Irish combined are 45-50%.
@DeanAllisonMP Also Mr. Allison as a former resident of your riding I want to thank you for all the hard work you do for Niagara West. If you have some time please look @DominionSoc I believe their policies are what Niagara and the country needs.