Hamilton mayor joins push to call on province, Ottawa to ban Confederate flag

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Published April 27, 2022 at 9:33 pm

Mayor Fred Eisenberger says he will push his colleagues to take formal action that could one day stop homeowners in Hamilton from flying the Confederate battle flag.

Earlier this week, Hamilton-area nurse and podcaster Amie Archibald-Varley shared a video showing a Confederate battle flag hanging from a home on Guyatt Road in Binbrook that she drives by regularly, which has renewed debate about collective anti-racism education and inclusion in the city. The video has more than 88,000 views, but Hamilton media outlets say the flag was still being displayed on Wednesday.

The flag has a 160-year association with white enslavement of Black people dating to the U.S. Civil War and is weaponized by white supremacists. Any move to ban its display in Canada would likely have to come from the federal and/or provincial governments. The City of Hamilton’s bylaw against Confederate and Nazi symbols applies only on municipal property.

“I will move another Motion in Council to request that the federal and provincial governments act swiftly to take action to ban symbols like this, as we should not have this flag and other racist and hateful flags flying in our communities,” Eisenberger said in a Twitter post.

The town council in Collingwood, Ont., took similar action last year.

In early February, New Democratic Party member of Parliament Peter Julian introduced a private member’s bill to ban symbols of hate. Bill C-229 received first reading on Feb. 3, five days after Confederate and Nazi flags were displayed by demonstrators on Parliament Hill during the first full day of what become the anti-democracy and anti-public health Ottawa Occupation.

Section 319 of the Criminal Code of Canada covers the incitement and promotion of hatred against any identifiable group. The first section of the law, though, has the qualifying phrase “where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace.” How the last two words are interpreted in a court could be the test for an expansion of the law. For instance, while one definition of “the peace” might mean the absence of physical violence and rioting, it could also mean recognizing the mental health effects that are imposed on members of equity-seeking groups when they are regualarly faced with a racist symbol.

Archibald-Varley, a Jamaican-Canadian who is a health equity advocate, has said that many Black and racialized residents felt isolated and vulnerable due to the display of racism. Social isolation is a contributor to mental health problems.

“We need to know that others care about us. We need to be validated that this type of behaviour is not OK. This is our home, our community and our city too,” she wrote in a Twitter thread on April 25.

Media workers from at least two Hamilton outlets have gone to the home, but the homeowner has not been identified. They were quoted anonymously by CBC Hamilton as saying they “fly that for freedom,” even though the Confederate battle flag is called “a potent symbol of slavery and white supremacy” by the Anti-Defamation League. They also told CBC “they don’t care what other people think,” even though they presumably made a conscious choice to display, per the ADL, a flag whose “popularity extends to white supremacists beyond the borders of the United States.”

Archibald-Varley suggested the possiblity on Wednesday of setting up an event to show that Hamilton residents support inclusion.

“I would love to set up a peaceful community walk and provide education about the confederacy,” she said. “Hand out flyers then end with our community asking to take them down. Would you join me?”

The Hamilton Immigration Partnership Council indicated that it would be interested in supporting such an initiative.

And, specifically to Binbrook, a doctoral student at McMaster University in Hamilton suggested a way that she and her fellow residents can show support for racialized neighbours. Maddie Brockbank, a past winner of the YWCA Hamilton’s Young Woman of Distinction Award, said residents should display supportive messages.

“I’m calling on my neighbours to combat hate speech and racist symbols by putting messages of love, community, care, and action in their windows or in front of their homes,” Brockbank wrote in a Tweet. “This is a small demonstration of solidarity and the very least we can do!”

 

The display, of course, has come in the contest of the more than two-year-old COVID-19 pandemic.

Two years ago, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service warned that neo-Nazis and white supremacists are among the extremist groups trying to use collective social trauma of the pandemic to spread conspiracy theories and disinformation aimed at radicalizing others.

That appeared to come to the fore with the Ottawa Occupation and possibly linked border blockades, which were an escalation of what organizers and supporters have called Freedom Convoy 2022. More than 550 Hamilton residents donated a total of almost $72,000 to a GiveSendGo campaign that was created in support of the occupation after GoFundMe shut down the original crowdfunding effort.

(Cover photo via Twitter/@amievarley.)

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