‘The emblem of one united body … one great sporting Maple Leaf’: The Olympic Games and Canada's quest for self-identity

Abstract

For Canadians, the enduring late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century debate between adherents of sustained British imperialism and those champions of Canadian sovereignty closed in December 1964 by dint of a Canadian Parliamentary act establishing a new national symbol, one that henceforth removed the British ensign from national flag and federal governmental identifications and replaced it with a simple red maple leaf embossed on a white background between two panels of red. This is the primary identification symbol, the logo, indeed the brand, by which Canada is now recognized throughout the world. The birth of the red maple leaf logo's legitimization in both national and international context points to a role played by the Canadian Olympic Committee, the embryo saga of which was superimposed on the initiatives of the nation's first Olympic team, the aggregation of male athletes that competed in the London Games of 1908. This work argues that the introduction of the red maple leaf as a national symbol of Canada, with respect to the logo's initial international debut at the Games of the Fourth Olympiad celebrated in London in 1908, provided the first in a series of succeeding international Olympic occurrences that lent sustenance to a greater Canadian movement towards neoliberal promoted national self-identity and a commensurate beginning of the erosion of what most Canadians would refer to as ‘Britishness’.