Dear Editor,
Fifty years ago Lester Pearson gave Canada its red ‘sugar maple leaf flag’ that foretold our future. That future is now, and it is fractured and always will be. The flag/leaf continually tells us who can ‘read it’ is that the flag represents Ottawa’s permanent ‘favoured focus’.
Sugar producing maple trees grow in Quebec, Ontario and to lesser extent in the Maritimes. They do not grow west of the Ontario/Manitoba border. As most of us know maple tree sap is harvested, boiled and made into sweet maple syrup and sugar.
The latter mentioned border is where the West should separate from the rest of Canada; Alberta should not separate on its own but the three western provinces together should. One very important reason to include Manitoba in the West would be maintain ownership of the ‘eastern’ saltwater port at Churchill.
James Charles, Langley