At long last, the great question of our time arrived on the doorstep of the municipality on Monday night: what is the city’s policy regarding flying of the American flag on city property?
The question came up during the new business portion of the regular council meeting March 24 when councillor Geza Wordofa asked what the city’s position was with regard to officially displaying the stars and stripes. Mayor Martin Ritsma said that he’s been approached by a number of people on this issue since the start of trade hostilities and public utterances by American president Donald Trump. He’s reached out to the province for their input on the matter but made it clear it’s still a decision for Stratford to make on its own.
“With the province’s work with the government south of the border, (Ontario) wants to continue to do that work,” he said. “I also want to identify that in our municipality, we receive 1.7 million visitors a year and 500,000 of those are Americans and when they come they tend to stay longer and spend more money.”
Lest anyone think it’s simply about the benjamins, Ritsma said it’s hard not to get emotional when someone in Trump’s position runs his mouth off about Canada becoming a state and hinting that he would manipulate things economically to force the country into a disadvantageous position.
“I do believe Canada is far stronger than any of those questions or comments,” Ritsma said. “This is not to say that at some point down the road, if the rhetoric heightens, that we can’t revisit this. I know we fly one of the flags in the Allman Arena, and I was recently in Boston in their stadium and saw they have flags for each individual player on a particular basketball team. We do have athletes from the United States that play in our local organization.”
In taking the long way around to answering Wordofa’s question, Ritsma said that the city has no plans at the moment to remove any of the American flags currently being flown by the municipality (located in the city's arenas) but restated that he sees how this is an emotional issue on both sides.
“I was part of a panel discussion in Hamilton recently and asked how many Americans were there,” he said. “A few put their hands up and said their fears in coming to Canada right now were that their car might be keyed or vandalized. I would remind people that 50 per cent of the American population didn’t vote for the current administration, and when you visit the U.S., you frequently get told, ‘I’m sorry’.”
Ritsma wrapped up his comments by adding that any councillor wishing to comment or discuss the city’s decision is welcome to do so.
