Calgary City Council has voted to ban the raising of foreign national flags at City Hall weeks after a Palestinian flag was raised for the first time at the venue amid backlash.
Council voted to remove sections of its Flag Policy to prohibit foreign flags from being raised at City Hall. The motion was introduced at its Dec. 15 regular council meeting by Coun. Dan McLean, who said the policy had become a “source of division within our community.”
“In recent months, this practice has been in use in ways that I’ve seen have inflamed tensions, including instances where flag raisings have been associated with anti-Semitic behavior and messaging,” McLean said during the council meeting.
He added that City Hall should be a place of “neutrality, unity, and respect” for all residents.
“When City Hall becomes a venue for geopolitical expressions, it places the city in the middle of conflicts that are well beyond our municipal mandates,” McLean said.
McLean said Calgary would continue to celebrate the “rich diversity” of the city through events, festivals, and community-led initiatives in neighborhoods.
Coun. Raj Dhaliwal said he would not support the motion as there had not been any security issues to date.
“It’s not going to help. It’s going to create more provisions in our society than it’s going to help. So please, I urge councilors, we got better things to do,” Dhaliwal said.
Coun. Myke Atkinson said 250 people turned out for the Palestinian flag raising and three who turned out to protest, highlighting that there had been “no violence.”
“That is about creating a democratic society where we can come together, we can have different ideas on an issue. We can exist in the same plaza, and that friction, that is what builds a healthy and democratic society, the ability to coexist,” he said.
Atkinson said he urged other councillors not to support the motion.
“We need that friction. We need intellectual freedom. We cannot sanitize the public away from the friction of different ideas,” he said.
Mayor’s Motion
Mayor Farkas said in a Nov. 13 post on social media he would be putting forward an urgent notice to have the flag policy changed.He said that with the federal government officially recognizing the Palestinian state, the previous council approved a flag-raising event for the Palestinian flag at City Hall, originally set for Nov. 30 and later moved to Nov. 15. He added that the city has raised the Israeli flag on May 14 for years.
However, Farkas said flag-raising events have now become “flashpoints” that are causing division and making some residents feel “unsafe.”
The mayor said he heard from several Calgary residents and communities with “serious concerns” about how flag raisings can increase tensions.
Farkas also said that while the flag-raising events could be “well-intentioned,” they risk increasing conflict and may be behind “the alarming rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia we are seeing in our city.”
He said that City Hall needs to be a “place that brings people together.”
