The Canadian flag was officially inaugurated on February 15, 1965. The Flag of the United States was adopted in 1777. The current flag of the United States was inaugurated in 1959.
Since December 18, 1964, the Union Jack is flown in Canada as a symbol of membership in the Commonwealth and allegiance to the Crown.
In August 1943 Roosevelt (USA), Churchill (Britain) and King met in Quebec City for a conference. On the Citadel, the Red Ensign flew below the Union Jack while the US flag flew at an equal height to the Union Jack. From that day, on King’s recommendation, the Canadian flag has flown as an equal counterpart to Britain and other nations.
Colours of the Canadian Flag were chosen to represent the following:
- Red: to signify the English, loftiness, royalty, assurance & military virtues
- White: to signify the French, probity & loyalty.
Born in Sydney, Nova Scotia and currently living in Sydney Australia, it’s fun meeting other Canadians around the world.
In a Coles (a grocery store in this country, not a book store) I walked past a woman with a small red maple leaf tattooed on her shoulder. When I asked her if that meant she was Canadian it ended up in a ten minute discussion. Her parents were visiting from Vancouver, mine from Stewiacke a few years ago. I’ve been here for five years, her for 10. Her husband is Australian, my wife’s Canadian. Just a friendly general catch up with someone who I wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t for that Canadian flag on her shoulder.
Hi Tony! Your post brought a big smile to my face. I created this site about 10 years ago to hear stories just like yours but most of them were private emails. I’ve been slowly moving my old site to this format so that people can post their stories – so thank you for chipping in!
I was wondering if you’d be interested in telling your story? How you managed to switch hemispheric Sydneys, what you miss, how living in another country has affected you, etc. I’ll post it here with your bio, picture and link back to your site. 🙂 You can catch up with me via twitter on one of my two accounts, I followed you from both, cletch (main) and canadaconnect (website).