The author goes onto call for the return of the White Ensign as the flag of the Canadian Navy. We should also take this opportunity, being the Centennial year for the Navy, to remind our readers of the petition to once again add the qualifier Royal to the Canadian Navy. The fleet was known as the Royal Canadian Navy from its inception in 1910 until the unification of the services in 1968.
Yet the festivities started off on a jarring note. On January 1, a "naval centennial flag" was hoisted in all naval establishments across the country. It is apparently to be flown until December 31, 2010. In fact, the "flag" is not what military people would normally think of as a flag. It is simply a nylon banner bearing what the government describes in bureaucratese as a "project identifier" -- what ordinary folk would call a logo. It is exactly the sort of thing that one can see flying outside otherwise non-descript offices in business parks across the country.
The navy's website says that the aim of the centennial is "to build and strengthen in Canadians an appreciation for their navy and to promote the role of the navy within the Canadian Forces in a maritime nation like Canada." It is, in other words, a branding exercise. One supposes that it is part of what General Rick Hillier described in his recent autobiography as the mission to recruit the nation. But if the "centennial flag" is any indication of the depth with which the navy has thought it through, the project is doomed to fail. Indeed, it will most likely be largely forgotten by the time the year is out.
The dropping of the "Royal" was part of a deliberate campaign, waged since the Pearson government (1963-1968), to steadily efface the monarchy from Canadian society. The corporate logo "flag" does contain a crown - I think it's a crown - and a maple leaf and an anchor. It looks like a rummage sale poster. Someone, in an office building in downtown Toronto, was probably paid a lot of money to design it. But I digress. A country without a sense of its own past, and its own traditions, is a country liable to be suckered in by any passing fad. In Canada, tradition means the monarchy. A Canada where the monarchy has been faded to background dressing, is a country that will not reflexively protest such a bland insult to our naval tradition.
hear hear
ReplyDeleteHear hear, Kipling. Ian Halloway has written a truly superb article. I'm not surprised he gets it - he was a long-serving Chief Petty Officer, and I of course completely share his sentiments.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, it is indeed time to resurrect the old petition. The Navy Centennial is finally here.
Good Lord, it's tacky. It makes the US Navy's flag look absolutely stately.
ReplyDeleteThis sort of thing is exactly why I left Canada for England. The country has forgotten herself.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, this is just a Naval Centennial identifier flag that will be flown for this year only. The logo isn't fantastic, but it's OK.
ReplyDeleteAs for a Canadian naval ensign, the ship probably sailed on that one 40 years ago. I understand that flying the national flag as an ensign is not Commonwealth tradition, but any change at this point would be very difficult to sell to Canadians, and to many in the Navy.
With respect to RCN, I have to wholeheartedly agree. Although the name Canadian Navy is used liberally today, it has no actual standing in law or regulation. The official name of Maritime Command is unsatisfactory and few identify with it. If we're going to use Canadian Navy in a quasi-official manner, let's have the guts to make it official AND Royal.
I agree with Gino on the restoration of "Royal" to Canadian Navy, although this seems very unlikely now. The petition has hardly "taken off". But I disagree with him on the rest:
ReplyDeleteThe term "Maritime Command" is no longer used on the Canadian Navy's website and is now all but defunct in practice. That being so, its formal standing (whatever that happens to be) is largely irrelevant. This is progress.
The Canadian public does not need to be "sold" on a naval ensign. They don't know or care about that. Most in the Navy would welcome the restoration of the traditional Commonwealth practice of flying the national flag as the "Jack", and those who would not would easily adjust. It is hardly an earth-shattering change.
The white ensign with the "Union Jack" would not be an appropriate ensign for the Canadian Navy now. Calling for it just damages the case for more sensible reforms. However, a St George's Cross with a Canadian maple leaf flag in the "upper canton at the hoist" would be. But even that limited change has little (if any) chance of success.
I might add that other small changes could (and should) be implemented, and yet have not been. E.g. restoration of "Nelson's curl" (the executive curl) to Naval officers' uniforms, the restoration of 4 rows of buttons on Naval officers' uniforms (rather than the current 3 rows, as with the USN). I see little if any evidence that the Conservative government wants to do anything to restore the traditional practices and appearance of Canada's Navy. Yet another missed opportunity.