Canadian Pride Flag

Identity & Context

Represented Identity

LGBTQ

National Context

Canada

Creators

Origin

Origin Type

not documented

Physical Origin Status

Creation place not documented.

Where the flag was made is not recorded, and no source places its making. The polity it represents is Canada, and its documented circulation is Canadian: Pasquin identified it in Toronto Pride photography, and Flags of the World gives it as the base of the 2005 Two-Spirit Pride Flag. Representation and circulation are not a place of creation. ^{[4] [1]}

Dates & Chronology

Earliest dated documentation

October 26, 2004

Creation Bounds

Undated as a design. The earliest dated documentation is Marc Pasquin's note to Flags of the World of 26 October 2004, which identifies the flag in photography of Montreal's Divers/cite representative at Toronto Pride. ^[1] That date belongs to the note, not to the photographed event, which it postdates by an unrecorded interval, and neither dates the making of the design. The flag existed by October 2004; when it was made, and by whom, is not documented.

Chris Pinette's page carried the design by 3 February 2002, describing it as used "to represent Gays and Lesbians in Canada" and combining "the red maple leaf of the Canadian national flag with that of the rainbow flag"; his artwork was captured on 18 September 2000. ^[3] Marc Pasquin identified the flag in 2004 in festival photography, flown by Montreal’s Divers/cité representative to Toronto Pride. ^[1] The 2005 Two-Spirit Pride Flag of 2 Spirited People of the 1st Nations is documented as this design with the maple leaf replaced by that organization’s emblem, which places the design in circulation by then. ^[4]

A variant that reverses the order of the green and blue stripes, at a different ratio, is documented by Pete Loeser on Flags of the World, 2015. ^[1]

Lineage

Direct predecessors

Rainbow Pride Flag

Direct children

Two-Spirit Pride Flag (2005, Zoccole)

Sibling flags

Alberta Gay Flag, Straight Ally Pride Flag, Anarcha-Queer Flag (rainbow variant), Argentina Gay Flag, Australia Gay Flag, Brazil Gay Flag

+ 43 more

British Columbia Gay Flag, Chicago Pride Flag (Rainbow Stripes, Purple Stars), Chile Gay Flag, Dominican Republic Gay Flag, Egypt Gay Flag, European Union Gay Flag, France Gay Flag, Gay Pride Flag of Pakistan, Heteroflexible Pride Flag, Heterosexual / Straight Pride Flag, Homoflexible Pride Flag, India Gay Flag, Italy Gay Flag, Japan Gay Flag, Jewish Gay Pride Flag, Manitoba Gay Flag, Mexico Gay Flag, Netherlands Gay Flag, New Brunswick Gay Flag, Newfoundland Gay Flag, Northwest Territories Gay Flag, Nova Scotia Gay Flag, Nunavut Gay Flag, Ontario Gay Flag, Palestinian Gay Pride Flag, Panama Gay Flag, Philadelphia Pride Flag, Prince Edward Island Gay Flag, Quebec Gay Flag, Rainbow Flag with White Triangle (Sapporo), Rainbow Israel Flag, Rainbow Polish Flag (2014, Angela Getler), Russia Gay Flag, Saskatchewan Gay Flag, Social Justice Pride Flag, South African Gay Pride Flag, Switzerland Gay Flag, Tanzania Gay Flag, Texas Rainbow Flag, Turkish Gay Pride Flag, Two-Spirit Pride Flag (2016 Tumblr documentation), Victory Over AIDS Flag (1980s, designer unknown), Yukon Territory Gay Flag

Descends from the 1979 six-stripe rainbow flag, which supplies the six bands in each panel, and from the national flag of Canada, which supplies the vertical triband, the white center and the maple leaf. The Commons file records both derivations, noting that it "includes elements that have been taken or adapted from" the gay flag and the flag of Canada. ^[2] Art Zoccole's 2005 Two-Spirit Pride Flag is this design with the maple leaf replaced by the emblem of 2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations, the relation Flags of the World states. ^[4]

Lineage tree

Every record reachable from this one through documented parent and child relationships: 5 records across 5 generations.

Ancestors -3

Original Rainbow Flag (1978)

Ancestors -2

Seven-Stripe Rainbow Flag (1978)

Ancestor

Rainbow Pride Flag

This record

Canadian Pride Flag

Children

Two-Spirit Pride Flag (2005, Zoccole)

Colors & Symbolism

This flag has no official digital palette. Color values shown are approximate.

No published statement of meaning has been located. The Commons file describes the design only as a gay flag of Canada. ^[2]

Values measured from the Wikimedia Commons SVG remake, not issued by a designer: no creator specification has been located, and the file is a 2010 remake of an already existing design, revised several times since. The six band values are the set Wikipedia uses for the rainbow flag rather than Gilbert Baker's originals, and the maple leaf's #FF0000 is a different red from the band's #E50000. Read as properties of this remake, not of the undocumented original. ^[2]

Design

Aspect Ratio

3:5 · documented

Ratio Notes

Chris Pinette's page, the earliest located source for the design, states the proportion and warns against the obvious inference: "The ratio is 3:5, unlike the Canadian national flag which is 1:2." His own thumbnail is 304 by 195, which is nearer 3:5 than 1:2 without matching either exactly, and the Wikimedia Commons SVG of 2010 is 720 by 480. The entry had carried 1:2, taken from the national flag, which is the reading Pinette rules out. ^{[3] [2]}

Orientation

horizontal

Stripe Count

6

Layout

vertical triband with rainbow panels and a central charge

Center Symbol

Red maple leaf

Additional Symbols

Six-band rainbow panels at hoist and fly

A vertical triband: a panel at the hoist, a white pale through the centre carrying the red maple leaf, and a panel at the fly, with each side panel running six horizontal rainbow bands where the national flag has plain red. Measured from Pinette's 304 by 195 artwork, the side panels take about 23 and 22 per cent of the width and the six bands divide their height evenly; the bands sample #FD0000, #FD6200, #FDFD00, #319C00, #0000CE and #CD31FF from top to bottom. ^[3]

No construction sheet or official proportion has been located. The Commons SVG is nominally 720 by 480 pixels in its current version of 9 October 2024, which replaced a 720 by 450 file; earlier versions ran 400 by 247, 777 by 480 and 1000 by 500. Those are file dimensions, not a flag specification. ^[2]

The flag of Canada with each red pale replaced by six horizontal rainbow bands, the white center pale and the red maple leaf unchanged.

Usage & Adoption

Documented in 2004 through Marc Pasquin's identification of the flag in festival photography, flown by Montreal's Divers/cite representative at Toronto Pride. ^[1] It is the design Flags of the World gives as the base of the 2005 Two-Spirit Pride Flag, with the maple leaf replaced by the 2 Spirited People of the 1st Nations emblem. ^[4] It is catalogued on Wikimedia Commons. ^[2] No creator statement and no earlier record of use have been located.

Footnotes & Citations