Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has taken a stand in the LGBT flag wars—and quite an unexpected one at that.
For four straight years, Liberals, the media (I repeat myself), and activists on social media have criticized Poilievre’s absence at the formal LGBT flag-raising on Parliament Hill. As I noted earlier this month, the LGBT flag has been hoisted in front of Canada’s seat of government with great fanfare each June, a potent symbol of Canada’s shift from a country based on the principles of scriptural revelation to the diktats of Sexual Revolution.
Characteristically, Poilievre has been vague about the reason for his lack of attendance. His voting record on these issues—most notably on the so-called “conversion therapy” bill—has been spotty, but in 2023 he excused himself by saying he’d been working late, and in 2024 he declined to say if he’d be attending any “pride” events. (He didn’t.) Each time, the press made his absence headline news in an effort to herd him into obedience.
At a press scrum in Vancouver, Poilievre broke his silence. “There was a school that took down the Canadian flag and replaced it with a Pride flag,” a reporter asked him.“My question for you is, what’s your position on this debate surrounding Pride flags and Canadian flags on public flagpoles?”
Poilievre first affirmed his support for equal rights for all Canadians, and then directly answered the question. “We should not be divided into groups and given special status and special financing based on those group identities,” Poilievre replied.“We should be one country, one people, united under one flag. So I also believe that it should be the Canadian flag at the top of Canadian flagpoles.”
“When I’m Prime Minister, we will fly the Canadian flag everywhere and always. We should never take down the Canadian flag for any reason,” he continued.“We have to be united now more than ever. We should not be tearing down statues of our history. We should be celebrating our history and building on the accomplishments of previous generations. That’s how we move Canada forward, together as one country.”
The question appeared to stem from the controversy surrounding the decision of an elementary school in Barrie, Ontario, to replace the Canadian flag with an LGBT flag. “It’s this type of stuff is why people are ripping down pride flags,” one Reddit user said. “I don’t agree with it but the more authority pushes something the more people are going to push back.” LGBT flags have been torn down at various locations across Ontario. Police are treating the vandalism and theft as hate crimes.
This prompted a CTV column titled “Should the rainbow replace the maple leaf during Pride month at schools?” “I’m disappointed that the knowledge of the display of the Canadian flag – that’s what I’m disappointed in. It shouldn’t have happened. It simply shouldn’t have happened,” Bob George, executive of the Veterans Club of Barrie, told CTV. “Even the Veterans Club of Barrie – they could not put it up in place of the Canadian flag. No other flag replaces the national flag.”
Poilievre has clearly decided that many Canadians are getting fed up with having LGBT ideology shoved down their throats while their national flag is replaced by the LGBT flag and they are accused of being bigots if they object. He has also decided to represent those Canadians. The Liberals have made LGBT ideology a fundamental pillar of Canadian identity, a change imposed not from the grassroots up, but from the top down. Canadians who object have had few political voices speaking on their behalf.
I hope Poilievre remembers this come election time.
