I realize I’m just an ex-pat, but my teeth clench whenever I hear Canadians chirp about the wonders of diversity, or imply that makes Canada a friendlier place than the United States.

When I think of diversity, I think of diverting the course of a river. And I’m seeing people like Justin Trudeau doing that, changing the course of a great nation. The irony of what I see going on is his selling out of the culture he doesn’t believe Canadians have.

Likewise, a recent article by Graeme Hamilton basically portrayed the Red Ensign as a symbol of racism, and that when the Proud Boys arrived in Halifax “the Canadian Flag they carried was 50 years out of date.”

Really.

If my father were alive, given the chance, he’d knock Hamilton into next week.

Dad fought for that flag. So did my uncle, my grandfather, and two great uncles that didn’t make it back.

So were the three members of my dad’s bomber crew that are buried in Berlin.

But again, I’m seeing Hamilton placing diversity and multiculturalism on an altar to which they don’t belong. He said racists have adopted the Red Ensign “to represent a time when Canada was a white man’s country.” But the flag isn’t about skin colour at all; it’s about the emblems of England, France, Ireland and Scotland. Canada was founded as an extension of European civilization; the Magna Carta, Charlemagne, the work ethic and tenacity of the Irish, Robert Burns, and William Wallace. Canada was founded on non-negotiable principles and ethics that multiculturalists seem to want to ignore.

That’s not to say that Greeks, the Germans, the Italians, etc. haven’t added a great deal, but in terms of the new immigrants, they must adapt to Canada, and not the other way around. While Canada has changed its laws to accommodate Muslims that have flaunted Canadian laws, Canadians are using Canada’s laws to prosecute people like the Proud Boys.

The Red Ensign was compared, incorrectly, to that of the Confederate States’s Stars and Bars. Apparently Graeme Hamilton also didn’t realize that while slavery was indeed an important issue that Abraham Lincoln fought to maintain the Union, and that eliminating slavery was applicable only to states in rebellion, less than one per cent of the southern troops actually owned slaves.

Lincoln’s intent was not only moral, but expedient – to cripple the Confederate war effort. The southerners fought for honour, to protect their homes from the invasion that ultimately came. The Stars and Bars did not get much attention until the 1930s, and yes, the Klan did use it, but they also flew Old Glory and wore the Christian cross on their robes.

And while slavery was certainly a horrible institution, both Canada and the Northern states weren’t exactly clean on human exploitation. Child labour was certainly an issue for both countries; in fact, it wasn’t outlawed here until 1938. And reading muckraking novels like Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” paints a picture that the working conditions for some factory workers was worse than many slaves had to encounter.

In fact, in the ill-contrived Mexican American War, Irish were taken off the coffin ships, inducted into the U.S. Army, tortured and treated so badly that several hundred defected and became “Los Patricios” and fought for the Mexican Army. Most were hung after Mexico surrendered.

Initially, I felt nothing for the Maple Leaf Flag, and like John Candy did in “Canadian Bacon” I made jokes about it.

But then my aunt asked me to view the Youtube of the Highway of Heroes, and seeing the flag draped over the caskets of Canadian heroes, I came to respect it.

But I was born under the Ensign, and I don’t think I’m out of date.

On Canada Day, here in Southern California, I fly both.

Greg Scharf was born in Sarnia but lives in Southern California