This happened on February 12, at the municipal council of the small town of Greenstone, in northwestern Ontario. The idea was to adopt a resolution removing the green and white flag of the Franco-Ontarians from the city hall flagpole. It had flown there for eight years under the city’s emblem, itself flying under the Canadian flag, all this symbolic fabric being attached to the same mast.
The resolution adopted unanimously by the council is the result of real reflection. We read this in the minutes: “There are certain days when the Franco-Ontarian flag may not be an appropriate choice, such as on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation or the National Day of Indigenous Peoples. In the municipality’s strategic plan, the council is committed to reconciliation. Flying another flag all year round below the municipal flag is not consistent with reconciliation. »
The only French-speaking municipal councilor there, Alan Ouellet, was not present to oppose the resolution, the existence of which he learned after the fact. The City, however, asked him not to give an interview, since he is not a spokesperson for the municipality. The 2021 census indicates that, of the 4,309 citizens of the area, 50 have an indigenous language as their mother tongue, or 1.2% of the total, and that 890 have French, or 20%. A few kilometers away is the territory of the community Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek, which has 300 residents, its school, its government, the flags of its choice.
The editor-in-chief of the local French-speaking newspaper, The traveler, Mehdi Mehenni, explains to me that “the French-speaking population was neither consulted nor informed. We discovered this while looking at the agenda for the February 12 city council meeting. Listening to the video recording of the session [plus de trois heures]only 30 seconds were devoted to the question, the time for adoption by show of hands.”
The removal of the green and white flag caused a lot of noise. The president of the Association of Francophones of Northwestern Ontario, Claudette Gleeson, is among those disappointed. “I think they need to realize that in Canada, we have a social contract between three founding peoples. Each of us has a place,” she explained to Traveler. Moreover, she plans to discuss with the two communities in the immediate region to, she says, “sign an agreement and provide proof that they have no problem seeing the Franco-Ontarian flag flying permanently.” No Indigenous complaint or request calling for the removal of the French-speaking flag or the addition of an Indigenous flag has been reported.
In a scathing editorial, Mehenni believes that justice must certainly be done for Aboriginal people and a place for them, but accuses the municipality of using this pretext to “dispossess the local French-speaking community of its flag. Which amounts to repairing one injustice with another. To believe that the paths to reconciliation necessarily pass through the negation of Franco-Ontarian identity.” What is happening at Greenstone, he writes, “risks happening elsewhere.”
Elsewhere ? In an even more meaningful symbolic decision? Let’s try to imagine what would happen if the son of the father of the Official Languages Act designated as head of state of Canada a bilingual governor general, but English-Inuktitut, rather than English-French-Inuktitut? Let’s imagine that, moreover, she comes from Quebec. Let’s imagine that she has had access to private lessons at our expense for three years without still being able to converse. That would be serious, right? A kind of symbolic electroshock. As if, in Winnipeg, in a televised ceremony on ice, a national anthem invented in French was only sung in English and Punjabi? No, wait, I have even better: that this anthem originally dedicated to the valor of French Canadians be sung during a continental sporting event, but in English only and (brace yourself) by a French-speaking singer from Quebec ! We would do it on purpose, we couldn’t find anything better to make ourselves invisible with our own words, music, creators. It would be, dare I say, symbolic cruelty.
In Greenstone, French speakers decided that the symbolic affront would not pass. To those who proposed planting another flagpole to restore the Franco-Ontarian flag, the City responded that it would be too expensive, between $7,000 and $10,000. The traveler says he is ready to launch a fundraiser. A delegation of outraged Francophones will appear at the next council meeting on March 11. If they do not win their case, they plan to fly the green and white flag in front of private properties and French-speaking businesses.
This affair is not trivial, underlines the historian Serge Dupuis, author of Double standards. Brief history of linguistic duality in Canada (North). “I have the impression that we are returning to the situation before 2000, where the Franco-Ontarian flag flew very temporarily and occasionally on the masts of government buildings,” he explained to Radio-Canada . It would be sad if it actually triggered a movement towards marginality, then obscurity and took us back 30 or 40 years. »
At the municipal council meeting on March 11, young Vincent Nadon, a fifth-grade secondary student, will represent the youth wing of the Franco-Ontarians of the northwest. He will read to the commissioners, in French, the poem he composed during a flag raising in 2003. Here is an extract: “Gathered in the borders of this province / A community was formed by the language of the elders / Marked by the refusal to be assimilated / We are proud to have come and we are proud to have stayed / We do not show weakness. » One detail: he is mixed race. I would like him to send a copy to Mary Simon and Charlotte Cardin.