Vice-Regal Saint: Last Post on Vimy
Pun intended. I've been looking for this photo, so here it is. Due to Prime Minister Harper's insistence over bureaucratic objections, the Canadian Red Ensign of 1917 now flies in perpetuity over Vimy Ridge, a flag which Canadian soldiers at the time may or may not have recognized. 
All would have recognized the Royal Union Flag, of course. The conveniently ignored truth is that the Canadian Corps fought at Vimy under British command as part of the larger British Battle of Arras, with the support of British artillery and the whole of the 51st British Highland Regiment engaged on the Corps' flank, yet even with British soldiers buried on the slope, the Imperial Flag is given no honour of presence. Oh well, at least the Union Jack flies in the canton position on Vimy Ridge now. Let us not begrudge progress when we see it.
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7 comments:
Thanks for picture. I wonder if we'll see a proliferation of such ensigns being sold on the market now; it looks like a regular printed flag rather than properly sewn one but, Oh well.
Seeing Mounties parading with the maple leaf with Vimy as a backdrop just doesn't seem right...
Great pictures.
Agreed on the Union Flag.
But as you mention, let's take what we can get!
Gents:
The flag of Canada in 1917 was the Union Jack. The rites of the Royal Canadian Legion clearly stipulate that Great Ware Veterans be interred under the flag of which they served - the Royal Union Flag.
The Red Ensign was used only informally on Government Buildings within the Dominion, but only as a common practice after 1924.
Political correctness continues to win the day. Harper's act was symbolic of only one thing: MORE CONFUSION.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2002/07/17/vimy020717.html
Burton
Check out the G&M'editorial dated March 31:
"Of course the Canadian Red Ensign should fly alongside the Royal Standard of Canada, the Maple Leaf, the Union Jack and the French tricouleur. And of course the Red Ensign should fly in perpetuity at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. The Maple Leaf is not the battle flag of a Canadian revolution. When Canada adopted the 1965 flag, Canadians did not abrogate their history.
The Red Ensign, along with the Union Jack, was the flag Canadians fought under during the First World War, and indeed the Second World War, and it deserves a place of continuing honour in this country and on its historic battlefields. To do otherwise would serve only, as the Dominion Institute's Rudyard Griffiths aptly put it, to "airbrush our history." The 1965 flag is in a sense a product of the heroic Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917, since the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers during the Great War were integral to the full achievement of Canadian independence, codified in the Statute of Westminster, 1931.
.....
When the Queen of Canada and her Prime Minister meet on April 9for commemorations of the battle's 90th anniversary, it is only right that the Red Ensign fly again over that hallowed ground."
I love the Red Ensign and proudly own one. I just think the Royal Union Flag should fly at the Ridge as well as the Ensign ...
Great moves from Prime Minister Harper. The Red Enseign is an historical flag and fully desserve to be at Vimy Memorial. Ah! Those bureaucrats!!! Lest We Forget... it's not a marketing tagline for Christ's Sake!
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