A FLAG’S 15-YEAR JOURNEY
Ancaster family finally get their giant Ottawa souvenir and it will set hearts aflutter at a Canada Day wedding
It was a 15-year journey to a piece of Canadian history for Ancaster’s Peter Dalton.
In 2002, the Dalton family went to Ottawa to check out universities for daughter Kristen.
While there, they toured the Parliament Buildings and father Peter signed a guest book, adding his name to a growing wait-list of Canucks wanting to receive a flag once flown on the Peace Tower.
“I didn’t even know they gave these flags out,” he recently recalled.
At the time, the wait was expected to be four or five years. Then life got in the way. “Quite honestly, we forgot all about it,” the 60-year-old said.
It wasn’t until earlier this year when cleaning out some files that he stumbled across an old letter thanking him for registering for the program.
“I kind of smiled when I looked at the letter,” Dalton said.
Shortly afterward, Dalton fired off an email, wondering if he’d missed his chance to get a flag of his own.
He soon heard back from a government official who noted the flag had been sent out but returned because he had moved. (The family moved to a new home in Ancaster in 2006.)
They promised he would be next on the list, and sure enough, a few weeks later a package showed up in the mail.
Inside was the flag — all 15 feet by sevenand-a-half feet of it — and a letter from Public Services and Procurement Minister Judy Foote, noting that particular flag had flown over the Peace Tower on April 6, 2017.
“It’s beautiful,” Dalton said of the flag. “It’s a unique item that not just anybody can get their hands on.”
Currently, the wait time for a Peace Tower flag is 73 years, according to Magda Hovjacky, director of ministerial correspondence for Public Services Canada.
The flags, which are changed every weekday, are donated to Canadian residents. Each person or household is only eligible for one flag.
The wait-list has grown significantly. Canada’s 150th has increased the number of requests, Hovjacky said.
So too has Flag Day, Canada Day, the Olympics, the 50th anniversary of the Canadian Flag and coverage of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raising the flag before he was sworn in.
“Clearly, the flag holds a special meaning to Canadians,” she said.
To the Dalton family, the meaning is extra special. This Canada Day, daughter Kristen is getting married.
“It was kind of coincidental timing,” Dalton said. “It’s like everything came together.” The flag, stored in the family’s living room, has been unfolded so family and friends can have their photos taken with it. But it will make its big debut at the wedding, Dalton said.
There’s an area it could have been set up behind the head table, but that idea was kiboshed.
“It would look like a Bruce Springsteen album or something,” he said.
Instead, the plan is to have it hang on the wall in the area where food will be served.
As for what’s next for the flag that made its way to Ancaster, Dalton said he’s not sure. They don’t have a wall big enough for it to fit.
“One step at a time,” he said. “It took 15 years, but we have it now.”
It’s a unique item that not just anybody can get their hands on. PETER DALTON