Canadian Symbols

The Crown, the flag, the maple leaf, the anthem, honours and holidays.

The Crown and the flags

For four centuries the Crown has stood for the state itself — and for government in all its parts: Parliament, the legislatures, the courts, the police, the forces.
Since Confederation in 1867, which fell in Victoria’s reign, the country has been a constitutional monarchy in its own right.
The flag first flew in 1965. Its red-white-red arrangement was taken from the flag of the Royal Military College at Kingston, which opened in 1876.
Red and white have been the national colours of Canada since 1921.
The Royal Flag here is the Union Jack. Before the maple leaf, the Red Ensign did duty for roughly a century.

The maple leaf is Canada’s best-known symbol, adopted by French-Canadians in the 1700s and on Canadian uniforms and insignia since the 1850s.
The fleur-de-lys was adopted by the French king in 496 and was the symbol of French royalty for over a thousand years. Quebec adopted its own flag, based on the Cross and the fleur-de-lys, in 1948.
The beaver was adopted as a symbol of the Hudson’s Bay Company and appears on the five-cent coin.
The coat of arms and the motto "A Mari Usque Ad Mare" ("from sea to sea") were adopted after the First World War.

Completed in the 1860s in Gothic Revival style.
Fire — accidental — took the Centre Block in 1916; rebuilding finished in 1922. Of the original, only the Library still stands.
Raised as a First World War memorial and finished in 1927, the tower houses the Books of Remembrance in its Memorial Chamber.

Hockey is the most popular spectator sport and the national winter sport; it was developed in Canada in the 1800s.
The Stanley Cup was donated by Lord Stanley, the Governor General, in 1892. The Clarkson Cup for women’s hockey was established in 2005 by Adrienne Clarkson, the 26th Governor General.
Lacrosse, first played by Aboriginals, is the official summer sport.
Canadian football is the second most popular sport; CFL teams compete for the Grey Cup, donated by Lord Grey in 1909.
No game has more registered players than soccer. Curling arrived with Scottish settlers.

The Official Languages Act was passed in 1969. Its three objectives: establish equality between French and English in Parliament and the Government of Canada; maintain and develop official language minority communities; promote equality of French and English in Canadian society.
Adopted as the anthem in 1980, a full century after its first performance in Québec City in 1880. The French and English versions carry different words.
The Royal Anthem is "God Save the King (or Queen)".

The country founded its own honours in 1967, a hundred years after Confederation, beginning with the Order of Canada.
The Victoria Cross is the highest honour available to Canadians, awarded for the most conspicuous bravery in the presence of the enemy. It has gone to 96 Canadians since 1854.
Alexander Roberts Dunn was the first Canadian to receive the V.C. (Charge of the Light Brigade, 1854).
Hall, from Nova Scotia, was born to parents who had been enslaved in America and became the first black recipient of the medal.
Konowal came from Ukraine — the first man in the Canadian Corps born outside the Empire to earn the medal.
Gray, in August 1945, remains the most recent Canadian to be awarded it.