[conspire] Happy Canada Day

[Rick Moen]

Quoting alexkleider (alexkleider at protonmail.com):

> As one of your Canadian members, I thank you, Rick.

You are warmly welcome, neighbour.

> In my child hood, youth and (very) early adulthood, the Canadian Flag
> was the Red Ensign.  The current flag came into being under then Prime
> Minister Pierre Trudeau (father of the current PM.)

The final round of the (long-running) Great Flag Debate started in 1960
when Lester Pearson (Liberal Party) was in opposition and Diefenbaker
(Progressive Conservatives) was PM, against Diefenbaker's bitter
opposition.  After the Liberals and Pearson got into power (1963), PM
Pearson pushed for his own variant of a Maple Leaf Flag though the
latter half of 1964, but the final design approved in Parliament on
December 16, 1964 was one by historian George Stanley, and it received
royal assent on Feb. 15, 1965 -- the day it was raised on Parliament
Hill for the first time.  Pearson was still PM, and Trudeau didn't
take office until 1968.

Journalist George Bain famously wrote in _The Globe and Mail_ on the
morning after Feb. 16, the first Flag Day in Ottawa, that the flag
'looked bold and clean, and distinctively our own.'

Diefenbaker as Leader of the Opposition and arch-conservative really
hated the Maple Leaf Flag, and of course veterans' groups still love and
fly the Canadian Red Ensign to this day.  Not to mention, for good and
compelling historical reasons, the Red Ensign continues to fly at Vimy
Ridge.

> He also presided over the darkest of Canadian times during the FLQ
> crisis, but I digress...

The only man who could quietly say 'Well, just watch me' with a faint
smile and be understood to have settled the October Crisis, for all
practical purposes (presaging invocation of the War Measures Act three
days later).  https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2565499342  (I'm sure
someone translated that to 'Observez moi' for Front de libération du
Québec's benefit.) 

> There only remains to wish you and all list members a pleasant 4th of
> July- may you all stay safe.

I might, at this point, quote Missouri Senator Carl Schurz's famous
correction (on the Senate floor[1]) of Commodore Decatur's patriotic
toast:  'My country right or wrong; if right to be kept right; and if
wrong, to be set right.'

(Interesting man, Sen. Schurz.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schurz )


[1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/U._S._Senate_Speeches_and_Remarks_of_Carl_Schurz/Sales_of_Arms_to_French_Agents_6
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/my_country,_right_or_wrong