Sutcliffe Failed On Flag Issue: QUOTABLE

Published 07/21/2025 · Updated 07/20/2025

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“The City of Ottawa could, instead of letting the mayor opt out, make the city’s top politician accountable by putting the onus on them to approve explicitly any flag being raised. Or staff could prepare a list of hostile countries whose flags aren’t welcome. If putting the United States on such a list is a diplomatic bridge too far, in spite of Mr. Trump’s drumbeat of hostility, perhaps end the practice of flying foreign flags at city hall. … the flag of country aiming to harm Canada shouldn’t fly at city hall.”

The Globe and Mail editorial board

When you get called down by some of the most impressive opinion-makers in the country at The Globe and Mail, you might have a policy problem at Ottawa City Hall.

Your agent, in his young naive years at the Winnipeg Free Press, once asked our venerable managing editor what the newspaper’s policy was on a particular workplace issue.

That was a mistake.

“Policies are for people who don’t think.”

“Do the right thing.”

Nuff said. The ME was right. No value in hiding behind protocol to avoid making a decision. Make a choice not on some faceless policy but on the circumstances of each different situation. Name an issue that is exactly the same as a similar issue that has come before. The circumstances might be similar but not the same and thus the answer must carry the same kind of nuance. Or maybe the policy is just plain wrong. Bad idea to follow a wrong policy.

So the ME was right and he set me in my place, much to my unease. But I learned an important decision that obviously, over so many decades, stuck.

Another publisher with whom I worked set me straight on making a decision. I told him if I did one thing, this, this and this could happen. If I did another thing, this, this, and this could happen. What did he think?

The publisher, maybe the best journalist this country has ever seen, told me: “You know more about this project than anyone else and you’re asking for my opinion. You are in the best position to make a decision and we pay you to make decisions.”

“So make a decision.”

Then the publisher walked away a few steps, turned around and said to me in no uncertain terms: “And make sure you are right.”

I left with a bit of comeuppance and an inner (believe me it was inner) smile. I’d been told.

Each time my bosses, both good people, gave me great life advice. And it helped that they were right.

So were they still here, they would be appalled by the actions of Mayor Mark Sutcliffe on flying the U.S. flag at Ottawa City Hall. Sutcliffe hid behind policy and failed to make a decision. Then after all that, his decision, such as it was, was wrong.

Has the mayor missed the last few months of Canadian-U.S. relations? Has he missed how Canadians feel about the U.S. now? Has he seen all those Canadian flags? Has he missed the little maple leaves in grocery stores? Is he afraid of embarrassing the U.S. ambassador? Little late for that, Your Worship. It has already been done.

Talk about tone deaf.

It’s too bad His Worship didn’t have some of the bosses in broadcasting I had in my journalism career. Sutcliffe might have made some better decisions. And most certainly, he would have got the U.S. flag issue right.

The mayor just insulted all those people who flew Canadian flags on their homes since U.S. President Donald Trump questioned the country’s sovereignty and declared economic war on the nation.

Of course you don’t fly the U.S. flag at city hall when that country plans to do Canada harm.

There’s nice and then there’s just wrong. Do you compliment someone on the punch you just took in the nose? Do you praise U.S. President Donald Trump’s bad manners? His wrong-headed tariff policies?

Make nice with someone who just punched you in the face and they punch you again. You look weak.

You get tired of that after a while.

Ken Gray