Hamilton leaders take unified stand against Confederate battle flag

Hamilton anti-racism advocates, faith leaders and Mayor Fred Eisenberger have urged a rural homeowner to take down a Confederate battle flag.

The flag outside the front door of a Binbrook home on Guyatt Road is a symbol of hate, is a symbol of bigotry, is a symbol of white supremacy," Amie Archibald-Varley said during a news conference at city hall Friday.

It's also a source of great distress that's within three minutes of her family's home in the same rural area, said Archibald-Varley, a Jamaican-Canadian nurse and podcaster.

This is very, very painful for people like me and people in our community."

But the Guyatt Road residents who say they have flown the flag outside their front door for more than two years insist they won't take it down.

I have the right to put it there," said a man at the house who declined to give his name but whom The Spectator has identified as Robert Pelton.

To me, it doesn't have anything to do with hate or racism or anything else. It's more government oppression, I guess you could say."

But the relic of the American Civil War era is widely viewed as a symbol of hate that's inextricably woven into a brutal legacy of Black slavery, segregation and racial oppression.

Archibald-Varley, who described Friday the angst of having to explain the flag's significance to her three young children, said she decided to make it an issue over social media to spark action.

Last summer, council approved a bylaw that bans flags and symbols that are used to promote hate - including the Nazi swastika and Confederate battle flag - on municipal property.

But the bylaw doesn't extend to private property, a policy gap that Achibald-Varley and others at the city hall gathering called to be closed through legislation.

Bill C-229, New Democrat MP Peter Julian's private member's bill, would amend the criminal code to make the display of symbols that promote hatred against identifiable groups an offence.

The city has started to take action through its bylaw, said Kojo Damptey, executive director of the Hamilton Centre For Civic Inclusion (HCCI).

But if we are not allowing these symbols on city property, why do we allow it on private property?"

Mayor Fred Eisenberger said the municipality's powers are limited and expressed hope Bill C-229 passes.

He also urged the Guyatt Road residents to take down their flag.

Take the flag down. It has no value. It only does harm."

Flying a Confederate flag is racist, hateful, ignorant, deliberately offensive and historically nonsensical," said Jacob Polowin, a lawyer in Gowling WLG's Ottawa office who specializes in municipal law.

Regardless, under the current law it is a protected form of expression. I don't think there is anything that the province, the city or the police can do to stop someone from flying that flag on their private property," he added in an email.

Even if the federal government were to specifically ban that flag, it is difficult to see how that ban would survive a Charter challenge, absent a significant shift in common law governing hate speech."

Archibald-Varley said the flag isn't her only concern in Binbrook, noting that this past winter someone carved the N-word" in the snow outside a Black person's home.

In a report presented this week, Hamilton police noted a 35 per cent increase in hate/bias incidents in 2021.

Of those 108 incidents, 49 related to race and ethnicity, 38 to religion, 19 to sexual orientation and two to gender identity.

This doesn't include the many incidents that have occurred that were not reported," Gachi Issa, bilingual Black justice co-ordinator at the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic.

The city must take meaningful action against hate," Issa added. We are tired of waiting until it's too late."

Rabbi Hillel Lavery-Yisraeli of Beth Jacob Synagogue said his family recently was loudly heckled just for being visibly Jewish" while walking on a nature trail in Hamilton.

There were other people in earshot and nobody said a thing. This is Hamilton in 2022."

Pelton and his partner, who also declined to give her name, said they'd sent emails to Eisenberger about the flag issue.

If the mayor wants me to take that down, he can come and ask me to take it down. And I'll try and tell him the same thing I told you," he said.

For him, the flag symbolizes the American North imposing taxes on the South during the Civil War era, Pelton said.

I look at it as being that it's the government wanting to come in and take over and telling you what you're going to do."

Lyndon George, executive director of the Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre, lamented that the flag is still even a matter of debate.

You know you can talk about it on Twitter. You can talk about it on the radio, but it doesn't change what individuals feel, the fear of families," George said.

Teviah Moro is a reporter at The Spectator. tmoro@thespec.com