Generally speaking, we Canadians aren’t as jingoistic as our neighbours to the south. 

I mean, we love our country, but waving flags? That’s for Canada Day—and even then, for many, it’s a sheepish, shy motion, the muted, physical equivalent to singing (or almost whispering) our national anthem.

We’re humble. Nothing wrong with that.

On occasion, however, and usually when it involves sports, Canadians can puff out their chests and paint their nations’ colours on their faces with the best of them: I give you Vancouver 2010 when Sid the Kid scored the Golden Goal as a good example.

There’s no doubt Canada’s excellence in hockey invites its patrons to be more patriotic (and downing a few Molsons doesn’t hurt, eh?).

We’ll see and hear that tonight in Montreal when Canada hosts the US in the 4 Nations Face-Off hockey tournament. They’re going to have a ball in Montreal. 

With tensions between the two nations rising due to one of those governments (I’m too polite to say which one) inexplicably ready to tear up longstanding and well-working trade agreements and threatening to add to its tariff tirade by talking about making Canada a 51st state, the bluster blowing in form DC seems to be creating a high pressure system of patriotism in the air.

It will be interesting to see if that transfers to the streets on this national Flag Day, which commemorates the first time the maple leaf was raised on Parliament Hill in 1965, replacing the Red Ensign, the de facto national flag Canada adopted in 1868. 

Earlier this week, Capital Daily ran a story about eBay and Amazon selling mugs, hats, T-shirts, and the like promoting the Great White North as part of the US of A—and we received more than a few missives saying, ‘No, way, San Jose.’

“It is time to boycott Amazon to remove this JUNK from their inventory,” one reader said in an email.

Former PMs unite to celebrate Canada

Last week, former prime ministers Stephen Harper, Joe Clark, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, and Kim Campbell put out a joint statement, one that crossed partisan lines and had Liberals and Conservatives aligned, encouraging Canadians to fly the flag today.

It was a thinly veiled signal to US President Donald Trump to politely take his 51st-state idea and build a wall around it. 

“The five of us come from different parties,” the statement read. “We’ve had our share of battles in the past. But we all agree on one thing: Canada, the true north, strong and free, the best country in the world, is worth celebrating and fighting for.”

It was Chretien’s idea. 

Chretien, who served as the 20th prime minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003 was always a boisterous booster of Team Canada, even co-opting that sportive moniker, adopting it for the crew of premiers who’d accompany him on trade trips to drum up foreign investment.

“He just turned 91, but there’s no stopping that man,” the Port Alberni-born Campbell told CHEK. “He’s just totally full of beans.”

Canada’s first Flag Day didn’t go off without a hitch

And that brings us to the first Flag Day, in 1996, and maybe not beans, but Chretien was surely filled with energy and vigour. 

The first Flag Day was held in a park in Gatineau, Que.,—we called it Hull back then—across the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill. It was a stingingly cold day. Thousands showed up and the place was electric. 

Canada was only four months removed from a simmering fight with Quebec in the 1995 referendum on sovereignty. Much like the Golden Goal game, it was close, with the country remaining united by the slimmest of margins: 50.58% to 49.42%. 

Only 54,288 votes prevented Quebec from separating from Canada and declaring its independence, so there was a certain anxious and spent mood in the nation’s capital, particularly on Parliament Hill. A mood that said, “Man, we almost lost our country.”

Speeches were made and flags were waved but in the end, all that will be remembered from that frigid afternoon in the Quebec cold is a confrontation between the prime minister and a demonstrator, a known fellow who had been in trouble with parliamentary security and the RCMP before, named Bill Clennett. 

From my point of view standing with fellow members of the national press gallery about 10 feet behind Chretien, I could see Clennett making a beeline toward the prime minister.

Surely security would stop him if he continued to make what seemed like a serious effort to approach. 

Within seconds, there was a commotion, and 25 reporters with cameras, microphones, and state-of-the-art tape recorders sprang from the media pen to try to get a clear angle.

I saw it clearly, as Chretien grabbed Clennett with two hands on the face and wrested control of his body, neutralizing him before the RCMP jumped in and pushed the protester  to the tundra.

The Shawinigan Handshake was born.

Just three months earlier, wife Aline grabbed an Inuit carving as she and her husband hid in their bedroom after an intruder broke into 24 Sussex. Now Chretien, who liked to call himself the “the little guy from Shawinigan,” had managed to elude his RCMP bodyguards long enough to take care of an onrushing demonstrator.

We in the press gallery would later learn that Chretien had waved his security from forming its usual diamond-shaped formation because he wanted to get close to the people to celebrate Flag Day.

So, will Flag Day resonate in Victoria today?

Twenty-nine years later, that’s what he and the four other former PMs have invited us to do today.

CHEK tracked down the folks at The Flag Shop downtown who said flags adorned with the maple leaf have been flying off the shelves, sales most likely spurred on to some degree, by Trump’s colonialist declaration and concern over impending US tariffs. 

“I’ve never seen this mid-winter,” manager Freyja Zazu told CHEK News.

Alas, in typical unanimated and understated Canadian style, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of Flag Day events in town to fly the maple leaf at today—but I suspect a Team Canada victory in Montreal may provide one tonight.