Canada In My Pocket

Sweet song performed during a ceremony of the celebration of the 45th anniversary of the Canadian flag (Feb. 15) on Valentine's Day, 2010, in the centre court of Markville Mall near Unionville in Markham, Ontario.

The song is called Canada In My Pocket, and these are the lyrics:

Chorus:
I've got Canada in my pocket
A little bit of history
A penny, and a nickel
And a quarter and a dime
Mean a lot to you and me
It's more than pocket money
They're the symbols of our land
They're pictures of important things
For which this country stands

The maple leaf, the maple leaf
Is a beautiful sight to see
It waves 'hello'' to us below
From the top of a maple tree
And with every year that passes
It grows like you and me
So should we all grow straight and tall
Like the lovely maple tree

The beaver, oh the beaver
Is a beautiful sight to see
He's a happy, furry animal
Like a teddy bear with teeth
He's never ever lazy
He works all night and day
Building houses for his family
He's got no time to play

The schooner, oh the schooner
Is a beautiful sight to see
It's a great big wooden sailing ship
That can sail across the sea
It brings to other countries
The things their people need
And brings back things
Like chocolate bars
And books for us to read

The caribou, the caribou
Is a beautiful sight to see
He's a really big strong animal
I'm sure you'll all agree
He looks like Santa's reindeer
And he loves it when
The wind blows cold
So he lives up north
With the polar bears
'Cause he likes the ice and snow

Canadian, Please

You don't see much of this kind of thing in this country, but I thought it was a hoot. I didn't know it was possible to boast in a self-deprecating way, but here it is. :) Yeah, another Canadian innovation: the un-boast. :D

Dreaming of Home (Vimy Ridge rededication)

Yesterday, Easter Monday, 2007, was the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Vimy Ridge… at least in Canadian terms. Canada’s most impressive war memorial is to be found there, towering over the lush plains of northern France.

I don’t work for the government — which is another way of saying I was in the office yesterday — and missed actually seeing the ceremony live. I would really have liked to. God knows, I would love to have been there. But I did set the DVD player to record it, so I got to review it when I got home.

To be honest, I wasn’t really paying close attention. The French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, was there, as was our prime minister, Stephen Harper, and Her Majesty the Queen. The first half hour was pretty much just getting everyone in place, and then the speeches began. The prime ministers spoke first, and then the Queen. As you might expect, they said wonderful things about the heroism of the men who died there, the gratitude of France, and the solidarity of Canada, France, and Britain. The words were moving; it seemed heartfelt, none of it over-the-top in the way of previous generations… I think we’re too cynical these days to be truly effusive. I was working in Photoshop at the time on the photo you see here, one eye and one ear on the screen, the other on what I was doing. It was weird… it was as though I were standing on one of the balconies of the building, listening to the speeches being given in the forest below; that’s how it formed in my mind...

When the speeches were over, there came this moment when music began. The tune was familiar… I realized later I’d heard it in the movie Joyeux Noël, about the Christmas armistice of 1914. The song is called, I think, “The Fraternizers’ Hymn (I’m Dreaming of Home)” in English. At first, just the melody, as I recall. Then men of the Canadian Armed Forces gave the song voice…

I hear the mountain birds
The sound of rivers singing
A song I’ve often heard
It flows through me now
So clear and so loud
I stand where I am
And forever I’m dreaming of home
I feel so alone, I’m dreaming of home

It was taken up by two or three dozen young girls in a choir from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. They were joined by Susan Aglukark. It pulled my attention utterly from what I’d been doing, and just overwhelmed me. I can’t explain it. The longing of the song, the idea that they were speaking for all those men so long ago; it made them very immediate. Big tears started to spill from my eyes as I watched and listened; it just came up out of nowhere so suddenly and easily it was frightening. I felt like I was standing on that balcony watching all this, feeling the yearning for home those young soldiers must have felt, the desire to be anywhere but where they were, aching for the love, familiarity, and security of a home many of them would never see again. I was reminded of my Dad, who served in the Navy for twenty years, and how proud I’ve always been of him, and how hard it’s going to be someday to lose him (if I live long enough… you never know)... that feeling really cut into me.

The song ended with a magnificent shot of a long line of army trumpeters, facing the monument soaring in alabaster into a featureless sky of perfect azure. At that moment came a thundering fly-past by four Mirage jets of the French Air Force. By this point, I was actually crying. I had to turn it off. It completely swept me away emotionally. The only other moment in my life I can remember being so spontaneously carried off was when I was 17, stepping out of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill just as the bells of the Carillon began to play high over my head, and the sense of Canada as something that existed before me and would endure long after me really struck home for the first time, and stood there in tears for a quarter of an hour. Like that, this was a strange, terrible, wonderful, singular moment that will be with me all my life.

I did finish the photograph. Suddenly it became the symbol of home that all those men, Allied and German alike, were fighting for, dying for, yearning for. In some small way, it’s for them. I hope they’re all home now.

I’m Dreaming of Home
by Gary Lewis / Lori Barth

I hear the mountain birds
The sound of rivers singing
A song I’ve often heard
It flows through me now
So clear and so loud
I stand where I am
And forever I’m dreaming of home
I feel so alone, I’m dreaming of home

It’s carried in the air
The breeze of early morning
I see the land so fair
My heart opens wide
There’s sadness inside
I stand where I am
And forever I’m dreaming of home
I feel so alone, I’m dreaming of home

This is no foreign sky
I see no foreign light
But far away am I
From some peaceful land
I’m longing to stand
A hand in my hand
… forever I’m dreaming of home
I feel so alone, I’m dreaming of home

What flag? Our own...

In today's Globe and Mail, there's an article asking under which flag we should honour Vimy Ridge. Vimy Ridge was a huge battle in France in the First World War in which Canadian troops played the central role. It was a rare breakthrough victory, and it has often been said that Canada, as a nation, was born there.

So the question is asked, under what flag should these soldiers lie? The battlefield is, actually, Canadian territory. It was ceded to Canada by France — a gesture I have always found moving and wholly amazing. Protocol dictates that the only flag that can fly on Canadian federal territory is the Canadian flag... that is, the Maple Leaf flag.

The problem is, that was not the Canadian flag in 1917. At the time, the official flag of Canada, as part of the British Empire, was the Union Jack. But tradition of the day had made the Red Ensign, a red flag with a combined coat of arms made up of those of the provinces in the fly, and with the Union Jack in the upper left corner, the unofficial flag of Canada of the day. The Maple Leaf, the flag that we have come to know as ours today, wasn't instituted until 1965.

Some veterans are championing the 1917 flag as the one that should fly at Vimy Ridge. I can see the point, but I respectfully disagree for a couple of reasons.

First of all, while I recognize that Canadians fought and died under that flag, and that it meant a great deal to them, it was not really even technically the flag of Canada. It was never officially sanctioned; its use was merely a convention. More importantly, it is certainly not associated with Canada today. Anyone arriving on Vimy Ridge and seeing it atop the flag pole might be forgiven for assuming it was a battle site of the colony of Bermuda, whose modern-day flag it most closely resembles. "Canada" would certainly not spring to mind, especially in the absence of the universally recognized flag we have today. If this monument is meant to memorialize Canadian soldiers, it ought to first and foremost unequivocally identify them as such. A forgotten flag from a century ago does not.

Secondly, Canada is not just an object or a moment in time. It is a continuum, threaded through millions of lives and across centuries, that existed before them, was sustained through them, and continued beyond. Those men fought and died for a country that lives today. Its emblem to the world was declared, definitively, in 1965. This flag is the heritage of those men; in part, it exists as the result of what they did. They earned this flag. They helped make real the nationality that proclaimed and upholds it. Every Canadian, living, dead, or yet to be born or join us from abroad, has a right to have their flag upon that soil. It is no disrespect to the men who lie there that the flag of their country as it lives should stand over them, even if time has changed it. It stands as the banner not of dead men, but of the living pride they inspired, now and into the future. In fact, in denying these men the representation of the flag of their living country, we are saying to them, "You are something else; something from the past we have left behind. We do not recognize you as part of this living nation. By our choice of symbols, we divorce you from it. We relegate you to history." The idea saddens me deeply.

If it must be one or the other, then it must not be Canada as it was and is no more, but Canada as it is, and will continue to be.

Caught in the moment

Took this shot today over my lunch break. I know it's a little nationalistic, but the storm cloud background just took my breath away. I took about thirty shots of this, using the drive setting on my camera... this is the final shot. Nice how that worked out. :)

A look at home

I had today off, so around noon I took the subway downtown to meet my friend Paul who works at the Archives of Ontario. I got to see some incredible things. One of the most powerful for me was a book, printed over 200 years ago, recording the very first acts passed into law by the legislature of the newly-created Province of Upper Canada, which was renamed Ontario in 1867. Here is a photo of the very first law every passed here.



Ontario was essentially founded by Americans leaving the United States after the Revolution. There has never been a time in our history when that dichotomy has not been a factor in who we are and what we fear to become. So, relatedly, I also found another remarkable record, completely by accident. Paul was showing me the pamphlets on record, and pulled down one from the 1860s, prior to Canada becoming a nation in 1867. In it was a speech by Thomas D'Arcy McGee, an Irish immigrant who was one of the Fathers of Confederation. McGee was always enthusiastic about creating a union of the British North American colonies, and he did live just long enough to see it happen, before he was assassinated in April, 1868, less than a year after Confederation. On the back page of the pamphlet, someone had pasted an article from a newspaper recording one of his speeches, this one delivered before an audience in Quebec, about Canada's destiny in the face of the American Civil War. As Paul read it out loud, I literally got goosebumps. The things McGee was saying then still ring true today, 140 years later...

"That shot fired at Fort Sumter, on the 12th of April, 1861, had a message for the North as well as for the South, and here in Quebec, if anywhere, by the light which history lends us, we should find those who can rightly read that eventual message. Here, from this rock, for which the immortals have contended, — here from this rock, over which Richelieu's wisdom and Chatham's genius, and the memory of heroic men, the glory of three great nations has hung its halo, we should look forth upon a continent convulsed, and ask of our rulers, 'Watchman, what of the night?' That shot fired at Fort Sumter was the signal gun of a new epoch for North America, which told the people of Canada, more plainly than human speech can ever express it, to sleep no more, except on their arms — unless in their sleep they desire to be overtaken and subjugated. (Cheers.) For one, Mr. President, I can safely say that I know myself I have not a particle of prejudice against the United States; on the contrary, I am bound to declare that many things in the constitution and people I sincerely esteem and admire. What I contend for with myself, and what I would impress upon others is, that the lessons of the last eighty years, more especially of the last few years, furnished by America to the world, should not be thrown away upon the inhabitants of Canada. I do not believe that it is our destiny to be engulphed into a Republican union, renovated and inflamed with the wine of victory, of which she now drinks so freely — it seems to me we have another and a worthier part; we can never join the Americans on our own terms, and we never ought to join them on theirs. — (Cheers.) A Canadian nationality — not French-Canadian, nor British-Canadian, nor Irish-Canadian — partiotism rejects the prefix — is in my opinion, what we should look forward to, — that is what we ought to labor for, that is what we ought to be prepared to defend to the death. (Cheers.) Heirs of one-seventh of the continent — inheritors of a long ancestral story, — and no part of it dearer to us than the glorious tale of this last century, — warned not by cold chronicles only, but by living scenes, passing before our eyes, of the dangers of an unbalanced Democracy, — we are here to vindicate our capacity, by the test of a new political creation. (Cheers.)"

Thoughts on the Maple Leaf

Like I said (below... I hate how blogs arrange things), it's Canada Day. Canada, as a federal union, is 138 years old today. We have had our own flag for just over 40 years now, as of February 15, 1965. Of course, everyone is familiar with the current flag...

But how many people these days are aware that we had a rather different flag before 1965? I think this is lost on many people just a little younger than me. This was never my flag; I was born under the Maple Leaf. But when I was younger, I had a special affinity for the old Red Ensign. It was the flag of a Twilight Zone Canada I never knew.

This was nearly our flag. When Prime Minister Lester Pearson set out in 1964 to give us our own flag in time for the Centennial (1967), this was the design he favoured. The sprig of three maple leaves is traditional, particularly to Quebec and Ontario (it still appears on Ontario's flag). You can also see it in the Red Ensign above, which features Canada's coat of arms.

While this, too, is not my flag, and the design of the leaves is hideous, I do sometimes find myself wishing the blue had made it onto the flag we have today... either one or both bars in blue. Many of the flags of free countries are red, white, and blue, and we would not have been out of place among them. But then I reflect on how beautiful our flag is in the wind... how alive it looks in red... how much it looks like flame. And then I can really only regret instead that blue, no matter how lovely, could never give me the same catch in the throat of that rippling, living flame.

Here's a revision to the Canadian flag, proposed in 1995, that incorporates blue in the design. It's not bad. But I guess it's too late in history; that ship has sailed. I'm not one to change our flag every generation or two.

I have a book about the history of the Flag Debate, and it features a number of the designs Canadians proposed over the years. Some are a testament to bland mediocrity, all character stripped away in an attempt to offend no one. Others are crammed with references to every ethnic group that ever found its way to these shores. Religious symbols. Animals. Union Jacks, fleurs-de-lys. Stripes, stars, mountains, lakes, Natives, and the ubiquitous maple leaf itself. When I look at them and see what we might have been stuck with, I'm deeply thankful we found the wisdom to adopt the flag we did. It gave us a symbol, the stylized leaf, that's unique, instantly recognizable, and infinitely utilitarian as a graphic element. I believe Canada is better known in the world simply by dint of having such a singularly striking flag. But if you're interested in seeing some of the bullets we dodged, click here.

If you would like to know a little bit about the stormy labour that gave birth to the flag, the CBC has a wonderful retrospective site about just how difficult it actually was.

The first flag (again?)

It's Canada Day, and as I write this, Prime Minister Martin is addressing the nation on Parliament Hill. He's talking about the gift we just received back from Europe -- the first Canadian flag (the current one, I mean) that ever flew atop the Peace Tower over the Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings, back on Feb. 15, 1965. It's been lost for 40 years.

A few years ago, the Liberal Party donated to Canada "the first flag", but it turned out not to have been. Don't ask me how you confirm something like this. I confess, I'm dubious about this one too. There must have been a lot of new Canadian flags floating around in 1965. How can we possibly know for sure this is the one? I guess we just have to accept it on faith. You can believe and be proud, or disbelieve and rob yourself of something small and valuable about the country. So... okay, we have our first flag back.

Happy Canada Day. :)