by Chris Meyers Almey
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 19/97) - Flags have been in use for centuries and often evoke strong emotions.

Such was the case in the early 1960s, when passionate debates swirled across the nation -- before Canada's maple leaf flag was finally adopted by Parliament.

Some people resisted change. Others designed their own versions of what they wanted to see replace the Union Jack and the Red Ensign.

Bold enthusiasts promoted their visions by such means as flying their creations from bridges on busy metropolitan highways.

To the uninspired, a flag might be a ho hum piece of cloth fluttering in the breeze. Or it can be the most sacred possession of an army regiment around which intrepid soldiers fight or die in battle.

To Mel Brown, to whom the Union Jack means everything, the maple leaf flag is "a non-starter."

As a private, Brown was shot through the neck while liberating Holland a few weeks before the war ended. The bullet nicked a piece of his back bone.

"I was a pretty good ball player before the war, but had to move from third to second base because I couldn't make the long throw any more."

Brown will be 80 this year and still likes to see the Union Jack flying on the Royal Canadian Legion building in Yellowknife.

But when it comes to Heritage Day and school kids having the day off for that, he's against it.

Instead, kids should spend the day in school with their teachers and other people, engaging in show and tell about Heritage Day, he said.

"That would be a better way to spend the day."

But Brown is a realist about flags. He says we shouldn't expect the same attitude towards flags today as we once did, back when the Union Jack flew high and the population was dominated by British descendants.

"Flags don't mean much to you if you have to promote them like that," Brown says about Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps' flag giveaway campaign, during which tens of thousands of Canadians were given free maple leaf flags costing taxpayers millions.

"The Union Jack has a lot of meaning to me personally, but it doesn't to 90 per cent of our members."

So why does the local Legion branch fly the Union Jack alongside the maple leaf flag?

Branch 164 president Richard MacDonald, sheds some light on the matter.

The Union Jack represents the Royal Canadian Legion's affiliation with the British Commonwealth Ex-Services League. It is a symbol of Canada's membership in the Commonwealth of Nations, he said.

It also signifies the Legion's allegiance to the Crown.

But the Union Jack also used to have another kind of devotee. It was sometimes the focus of midnight marauders in Yellowknife.

"It used to be that people leaving the Legion had a look up to see if the flags were still there, because they had a tendency to disappear in the night," MacDonald says. Now the flags fly much higher, but they're not necessarily all held in the same esteem.