Years after the convoy, Ottawa residents are 'reclaiming' the Canadian flag

Since the Freedom Convoy left Ottawa, Robin Seguin hasn't been able to see the Canadian flag the same way.

Seguin owns Victoria Barbershop, which has been operating out of the basement of a government building at the corner of O'Connor Street and Wellington Street in Ottawa's Centretown for more than 100 years.

Her shop put her right in the middle of the action as protestors filled the streets in January 2022.

"Every day I'd see one go by with a flag upside down or with a flag with writing all over it," she remembered, adding she witnessed a protestor burn the Canadian flag on Parliament Hill.

"I was devastated. It really made a separation between me as a Canadian and my flag, which always flew so strong and proud and free."

Even if Seguin had been able to forget the sight of those flags, she said her business has since changed in ways that serve as an inescapable reminder of the convoy.

"The building is on permanent lockdown, and what used to be the entrance to the barbershop is now called a man trap," she said, explaining that customers used to come and go freely and now they have to ring a bell to be let in by security.

But years after the convoy, former prime ministers are encouraging Canadians to fly the flag on Saturday to mark the 60th anniversary of the first time the red and white maple leaf was raised on Parliament Hill.

The patriotic display — celebrating what's known as Flag Day — is meant as a visible retort against U.S. President Donald Trump's threats against Canada's economy and sovereignty.

To Ottawans like Seguin, it's a chance to "reclaim" an inspirational symbol whose meaning was "twisted" during what she remembers as a dark period in the city's history.

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'They hijacked our flag'

When the Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa in January 2022, numerous cars, trucks and protest signs were plastered with Canadian flags.

It was intended to emphasize their nationalism, according to Carmen Celestini, who studies disinformation, extremists and conspiracy theorists at the University of Waterloo.

She said right-wing groups who attended the protest were invested in national identity and "this idea of who is a Canadian citizen and who is not, usually denoted by right-wing politics."

"They hold that flag as [if] they are the heroes of our nation, saving us from something, saving God, country and family."

But Celestini said many Canadians across the country didn't want to be associated with the convoy's views, which for them had become linked to the Canadian flag.

Brad Green, the owner of World of Maps on Wellington Street West, said he "chokes up, thinking about it."

"It's like they hijacked our flag and took its meaning and made it something else," Green said. "They twisted it into this dark and evil and wrong thing."

Celestini said people in "Ottawa encountered things that the rest of Canada were [only] seeing on television."

"I think that for the rest of Canada, and I would genuinely hope for Ottawa as well, that this is an opportunity for us to show the best of who Canadians are," she said.

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Carmen Celestini is a religious studies lecturer from the University of Waterloo who has researched the 2022 convoy protests. She says the Canadian flag has had an interesting trajectory over the past five years, shaped by the discovery of gravesites at residential schools to the 2022 truck convoy protests to now, as U.S. President Donald Trump's threats of annexation and new tariffs.

'Change for the better'

The summer after the freedom convoy, Celestini said some Canadians across the country chose not to display a flag on Canada Day because of its association with the convoy.

Benet Gladwin, a federal employee living in Kanata, said he still had a "visceral" reaction to seeing a Canadian flag after the convoy, especially if it was "jerry-rigged to the back of someone's pickup truck" or "tied to a hockey stick."

But when colleagues told him they were considering not displaying a flag that year, he told them: "You have to reclaim the symbol."

"It doesn't have to mean that you love everything that Canada does," he said. "It should just be the one thing that we can all come together and say that, we have our differences and we have problems that we can and should be sorting out, but we're happy that we live here. We're lucky to live here and we're proud to be a part of this country."

At World of Maps, flags have been flying off the shelves in advance of Flag Day. Green said his recent customers have told him they are "pleased that the flag is back to where it should be."

And for Seguin, though she isn't sure her business or her perception of the flag will ever fully return to normal, she said she'll be proudly displaying a Canadian flag on Saturday.

"I can look at the flag with pride again, which I couldn't do for the longest time," she said.