By Kelly Patrick
Outside most of the stores on Sparks Street, traditional Canadian flags wave in the wind as a symbol of each retailer’s patriotism.
But outside Ritchie’s Sports-Fan Apparel Shop, a salesman of a different stripe flies a unique Canadian flag that he says celebrates Quebec’s place in Canada.
It’s called the unity flag. And it features two vertical blue stripes bordering the interior of the solid red sections of the Canadian flag.
Herb Gosewich has flown three of the flags outside his specialty sports apparel shop for eight years.
In that time, so many people have asked about the unity flag that now he simply hands out a card explaining that it “recognizes Canada’s linguistic duality.”
“It includes Quebec with the colour of the fleur-de-lis,” Gosewich says. “I fly it because this is a democracy…If people give me flak about (the flag) I just say it’s a free country. If you don’t like it, don’t look at it.”
Montreal native Hank Gigandet provides Ritchie’s with the unity flags that customers can purchase for $55.
Since 1992 Gigandet has done everything from submitting a petition to Parliament, to setting up a unity flag website persuading the federal government to adopt his version of the nation’s most enduring symbol.
In 1965, Gosewich was one-half of a pair that submitted a design for the Canadian flag. His red maple leaf on a white background with solid blue borders was rejected.
But at Ritchie’s old location on Bank Street, Gosewich says he sold thousands of the flags.
“We had people lined up around the corner on the weekends because people wanted it for their cottages and to hang from their boats,” he says.
Sales of Gosewich’s flag dropped off after the red and white version of the Canadian flag became the country’s official symbol.
“That’s why Hank approached me,” says Gosewich. “He remembered the other flag.”
While other retailers say Gigandet stops by every Canada Day to entice them to fly the flag, Ritchie’s is the only store on the street that has agreed to do so.
Jason Pannozzo, manager of Morgante Menswear on Sparks Street, says he doesn’t fly the flag because his store is trying to project an upper class image.
“But the flags do catch a lot of tourists’ eyes,” he says. “People are always coming in to ask where they can get one.”
City Souvenir, a gift shop located a few doors down from Ritchie’s, also refuses Gigandet’s offer.
“The Canadian flag is red and white. Unity is good and it’s good to have your own ideas, but we follow what is legal or right,” says the shop owner Ali Lozaik.
Nancy Bergeron, a media relations officer for Canadian Heritage, says the federal government has heard about the flag with a touch of blue, but doesn’t intend to change the official flag.
“We have a flag that is a symbol recognized across the world and represents all Canadians. The red and white colours are traditionally associated with the two founding nations: French and English,” she says.