Flag Pole Fiasco, End Private Flags on Public Flag Poles

Ontario town to pay 10K, mayor to pay $5k

On November 20, 2024 the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal posted File 2020-41858-I. This was cited as Borderland Pride v. Corporation of the Township of Emo. The file itself can be read HERE. In this case a Pride Group submitted a request to Emo in 2020 with two requests attached. The first was a proclamation to declare June as “Pride Month”. The Second was to fly or display the pride flag for at least a week of the town’s choosing in June. In 2018 the proclamation was approved as submitted, in 2019 the proclamation was approved with the pre-amble removed.

So with this a precedent had been set in the past, one that would be difficult to retract on. Furthermore this was advertised previously as a service that had been offered and no previous request had been turned down.

[38]      It was agreed by the parties that issuing proclamations was a service the Township had offered for several years. Mayor McQuaker testified on cross-examination that he was not aware of any request for a declaration or flag display that had been turned down by council. Ms. Gray also agreed on cross-examination that there was nothing in the record before the Tribunal to suggest any proclamation request had ever been refused by council prior to the 2020 Borderland Pride request. I note, however, that the record indicated the Township did not receive many requests for declarations or proclamations or requests for display of a flag. In fact, it received only four such requests between April 2019 and April 2020, including Borderland Pride’s 2019 and 2020 requests.

There was discussion about passing a flag and proclamation policy but it appears that there was some confusion about it. The Mayor made a statement about the flag raising that was used in proximity to his nay vote that the judge found amounted to discriminatory.

[43] It was not disputed that during the May 12 council meeting, shortly after the Borderland Pride vote, Mayor McQuaker remarked, “There’s no flag being flown for the other side of the coin…there’s no flags being flown for the straight people.”

So in the end it was the comment made by the mayor that was judged to amount to discrimination in proximity to his vote of nay. This resulted in a $10k fine for the town, a $5k fine for the Mayor of the town for the comment and remedial training for the Mayor.

Private Flags on Public Flag Poles

I would recommend that people reading this print off the decision and bring it to their local town/city council in Canada for discussion. I am not a Councilor, but if I was I would probably suggest a resolution that moving ahead that the city flagpole or display area be used for three flags only:

1. Canadian

2. Provincial

3. Municipal/Treaty

These flags are the only ones that represent the State and should be the only ones flown.

In a recent decision the City of Regina pulled back its flag raising of the Palestinian Flag despite raising the Israel flag in May. This was in response to outcry from people. This is the problem with these situations is you end up taking a stance because you end up inevitably put into the middle of another groups conflict or activism. In the article about the flag situation, “According to Nicol, the recommendations for the flag policy will likely go before the new council at some point in the future.” I think all municipalities should be examining their policies and adapting them to be as patriotic to Canada and neutral to other Countries and private causes as possible.

I believe that on private property people are free to fly the flags of their choice, on public property there only need be the flags of the State flown. This ensures equal treatment and helps keep the separate of public and private causes.

---

Thanks for Reading!