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Comment by TMWNN | Hacker News Reader

>Even though Canada conceived of the arms, branded them with its national flag, and named them after itself

Yet more proof of how Canadians are far more flag-obsessed than Americans. Similarly, the maple leaf appears in the logo/signage of every single company in Canada, including Canadian subsidiaries of US companies.

If Canada had a full space program of its own, we'd see red-and-white Canashuttles (named Anne Murray, Rush, Gordon Lightfoot, and Margaret Atwood) launching from Cape Canadaveral in Labrador.

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Spend an hour driving through Canada on the way to the US, cross the border, and drive for another hour, and you will be disabused of that notion.

Something you can do in lots of places.

Americans are OBSESSED with the flag to a degree Canadians are not.

In terms of national symbols, maybe the Maple Leaf is present in a lot of places, but what you fail to remember is that the American equivalent is a "star" - of the "stars and stripes" or the colours red white and blue.

Try to find me an international American symbol (in space or otherwise) that doesn't have a star, a stripe, or red-white-and-blue, and you'll see it's equally ubiquitous for them.

Levis, Apple, Nike, Coca-Cola the list is pretty endless.

I don't think Canada is particularly nationalistic compared to other countries. Many Canadian subsidiaries of US Corporations put a maple leaf on their logo to specifically distinguish it from the US company, for example McDonald's Canada has a maple leaf. But it's not universal, and it's probably more common to use the unaltered American logo (see Walmart Canada, Costco Canada, Whole Foods Canada, UHAUL Canada, etc). The purpose it serves is not really one of nationalism but similar to how Canadian companies use the .ca domain vs the .com domain.

As other commenters point out, you really can't compare how flag-obsessed Canadians are to Americans. Just driving across the boarder from Vancouver into Washington and you immediately see larger than life flags which are really uncommon here. And when you do see a Canadian flag it is often accompanied by an American one.

We use the flag to mean "made in Canada" and we use it in an international context to indicate Canadian goods & assets - which, in my opinion, is what flags are meant for.

What you won't see is people putting flags on their lawns, on their cars, on their clothes or anything like that. The exception is tourist stores, which are full of flags, but you won't see Canadians shopping there.

See it quite a bit (more than I ever do in the USA) on lawns, cars, and clothing in Metro Vancouver / Lower Mainland BC. The US flag is common in some areas of the US and uncommon in others. So far it seems like its somewhat similar in Canada.

The maple leaf is a convenient and evocative symbol, but I don't think many people care about the flag itself. The symbol and the flag are distinct entities, at least in my mind. And it's definitely not present in every company's logos.

Displaying the flag anywhere other than at the end of a real flag pole has sort of become co-opted by the alt-right "freedumb" movement as of late.

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