Sarah Batchelor says it started a few weeks ago when a large blue flag bearing Alberta’s shield of arms appeared on her neighbour’s window in Airdrie, a city north of Calgary.
The 49-year-old music teacher, who has lived in the province for most of her life, says she would not have been bothered if her neighbour put it up a couple of years ago.
But now it irks her because of its widespread use by separatists.
“It’s just a weird vibe … It makes my heart sad,” she said.
“The Alberta flag is a hallmark of our heritage.”
Batchelor says she has since put a Canadian flag in her garden. Several neighbours have followed in her footsteps, proudly displaying the Maple Leaf on lawns and porches.
“The Canadian flag people, we all kind of see each other and wave at each other on the street. There’s some solidarity even in that,” she said.
The Alberta and Canadian flags have taken on a new meaning as the province nears a vote on whether the province should remain in Canada or hold a second, binding referendum on leaving the country.
Batchelor said it feels as if locals are duelling over separatism through symbols, but she’s OK with that.
“This is a democracy, and you have the freedom to express your views. But we need to be just as loud with our voice.”
The reasons for the referendum are in dispute.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith ordered up the vote for Oct. 19, noting hundreds of thousands have signed petitions for and against separation. Smith says she supports staying in Canada but that it’s time to put the issue to rest once and for all.
Critics, pointing to long-standing opinion polls indicating massive support for Alberta staying in Canada, accuse Smith of self-serving politics by calling up the vote merely to placate restive separatist hardliners in her United Conservative Party.
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Prime Minister Mark Carney has opposed the separation push and described the fall vote as a “dangerous bluff.” He has compared it to Brexit in the U.K., adding that separatists are making unrealistic promises and refuse to acknowledge the pitfalls of separation.
Groups for and against have since begun stumping the province to push their messages. For separatists, the Alberta flag — with its snowcapped mountains, wheat fields and green foothills – has become their unifying symbol, much as the Maple Leaf has become for the federalist side.
The debate at times has become personal, and ugly, in small towns and workplaces.
A rodeo parade in the town of Sundre, northwest of Calgary, was cancelled last month amid threats and abuse after parade organizers rejected a float festooned with Alberta flags they feared would be viewed as a political statement.
A union representing workers for grocer Sobeys Inc. recently filed a grievance after several of its stores in the province displayed the Alberta flag.
The United Food and Commercial Workers union said in an online statement that the supermarket chain is alienating those customers and employees who love Canada by displaying a flag that represents separation.
“It is a simple hard truth that the Alberta flag has become a symbol of the Alberta Independence Movement,” it said.
Sobeys Inc., did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
People also point out flags, and question their meaning, when they appear in social media posts by politicians, including in the comment section of Smith’s post last week showing a pilot at the Red Deer Air Show in central Alberta flying an Alberta flag while falling from a plane.
Last week in Red Deer, a clutch of Alberta flag-waving separatist supporters were also heard shouting from a distance at a housing announcement by Smith and Carney.
A spokesperson for Smith says the Alberta flag is a symbol of unity.
“(It) belongs to every Albertan who calls this incredible province home,” Sam Blackett said in a statement.
“All Albertans and businesses should be proud to fly and display Alberta’s flag. It is not a divisive symbol — it represents our natural landscapes, agricultural wealth, and British heritage.”
A flag expert says he’s not surprised the flags divide.
“Flags are, in my view, the ultimate icon of our tribalism,” Ted Kaye said in an interview, noting they are prominent in everything from sports to politics.
Kaye, with the North American Vexillological Association, said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, the Canadian flag became representative of the so-called Freedom Convoy, an anti-government movement.
Now it’s displayed by proud federalists in Alberta.
“We use flags to show what groups we belong to. That’s the fundamental purpose of flags and the fundamental purpose of the Alberta flag is to show that people belong to Alberta.”
Alberta’s current flag, he said was created in 1967 to salute the 100th anniversary of Confederation.
Back in Airdrie, Batchelor says she is leaving pamphlets at doors of neighbours flying the Alberta flag to remind them their symbol began as a way to honour Canada.
“That,” she said, “is my polite, Canadian, sarcastic way to deal with (separatism).”
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