Coat of arms of Canada
Arms of His Majesty The King in Right of Canada Armoiries de Sa Majesté Le Roi du Canada | |
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Latin: A Mari usque ad Mare, lit. 'from sea to sea' | |
Order(s) | The ribbon of the Order of Canada (Latin: Desiderantes meliorem patriam, lit. 'desiring a better country') |
Other elements | The whole ensigned by the royal crown proper. |
Earlier version(s) | Arms of Canada, revised 1957 |
The coat of arms of Canada (French: Armoiries du Canada), also known as the Royal Coat of Arms of Canada (French: armoiries royales du Canada)
The
History
Prior to
As more provinces and territories joined Canada, the original four arms were marshalled with the arms of the new members of Confederation, eventually resulting in a shield with nine quarterings.[18] This occurred by way of popular and even Canadian governmental usage; flag-makers took to using the complex shield on Canadian Red Ensigns. None of those shields, besides the original four-segment version of 1868, were ever official in any sense, nor were any of these shields a national "coat of arms", as they had never been approved by the monarch.[18]
Heraldists considered nine quarterings on a shield as too convoluted for a national symbol and,
The arms' design was settled by the following year and the committee conferred with the
After some manoeuvring, including the personal intervention of
Eugène Fiset, the Deputy Minister of Defence, claimed in 1918 that the design of the arms would determine the national colours of Canada and an unnamed member of the committee stated, "the colours of the shield will become the national colours of the Dominion [...] the red maple leaf has been used in service flags to denote men who have sacrificed their lives for the country [...] The case for white is that it contains an allusion to snow, which is characteristic of our climate and our landscape in certain seasons."[33] In the 1940s, military historian Archer Fortescue Duguid suggested King George V had chosen red and white as Canada's official colours because those were the colours in the wreath and mantling on the arms. However, Forrest Pass, a curator at Library and Archives Canada, determined there is no record of either the King or the committee giving much importance to the mantling and the royal proclamation of the coat of arms makes no mention of national colours, specifically.[34]
With the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, Canada and other Dominions became fully sovereign from the United Kingdom. This had the effect of elevating the Canadian coat of arms, which had been granted as deputed arms for particular uses in a colony, to the status of the royal arms of the King in right of the country, for general purposes throughout the country. They thus replaced the British coat of arms, which had previously been arms of general purpose throughout the British Empire, in courtrooms and on government buildings to represent the reigning monarch. This change can be seen in the Great Seal of Canada of King George VI, where the royal arms of Canada replaced the British arms, and is even more evident in the Great Seal of Canada for Queen Elizabeth II, on which the title Queen of Canada is used.[35]
By 1957, the arms were redrawn by
It took until 1994 for the Queen to approve the new design for general use; though, the Canadian Heraldic Authority, established by the Queen in 1988, began to allow for its limited use beginning in 1987, where the arms were used to represent the Queen personally on letters patent granting new arms for distinguished Canadians.[4] These letters patent carried the shield from the royal arms along with the annulus behind the shield bearing the motto of the Order of Canada—Desiderantes meliorem patriam. As soon as royal approval was forthcoming, the full achievement was redesigned for use by the federal government within the Federal Identity Program.[18] The present design of the arms of Canada was drawn by Cathy Bursey-Sabourin, Fraser Herald at the Canadian Heraldic Authority.[38]
Member of Parliament
Armorial evolution
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1868-1870, quartering the arms of the four founding provinces
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1870–1873, addition of Manitoba
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1873–1907, addition of British Columbia and Prince Edward Island
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1907–1921, addition of Saskatchewan and Alberta
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1921–1923
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1923–1957
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1957–1994
Use
The coat of arms, being
The arms of Canada is also present on all pre-polymer denominations of
The full achievement of the coat of arms has been used by the Canadian government on occasion on a plain red flag, such as in 1967 for the country's centennial celebrations.[55] It is also used on a flag in its full achievement in military ceremonies, such as Canadian Armed Forces Tattoo performances.[56]
As the royal arms are personal to the sovereign, they cannot be used without the King's consent.[57] The coat of arms "as designed in 1921 and revised in 1957 [...] [and] in 1994" are "protected under the Trade-marks Act and the Copyright Act and cannot be used or reproduced without authorization."[43] Further, "marks and designs similar to the official symbols are pursued as a copyright or trade-mark infringement."[43] The Trade-marks Act further states that, "no person shall adopt in connection with a business, as a trade-mark or otherwise, any mark consisting of, or so nearly resembling as to be likely to be mistaken for [...] the arms, crest, or flag adopted and used at any time by Canada."[58] In addition, under Crown copyright, "permission is always required when the work is being revised, adapted, or translated, regardless if the purpose of the reproduction is for personal or public non-commercial distribution."[59]
Designs derived from the arms
The
With the support of former
Blazon
The heraldic blazon of Canada's coat of arms, as declared in the 1921 proclamation, is:
Tierced in fesse the first and second divisions containing the quarterly coat following, namely, 1st,
Union Flag, and on the sinister, a unicorn argent armed crined and unguled Or, gorged with a coronet composed of crosses-patée and fleurs-de-lis a chain affixed thereto reflexed of the last, and holding a like lance flying therefrom to the sinister a banner azure charged with three fleurs-de-lis Or; the whole ensigned with the Imperial Crown proper and below the shield upon a wreath composed of roses, thistles, shamrocks and lillies a scroll azure inscribed with the motto A mari usque ad mare.[29][30]
The circlet of the Order of Canada was added around the shield for limited use in 1987 and for general use in 1994.[4]
Symbolism
Element | Description | Image |
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Crown | The coat of arms are surmounted by a rendition of | |
Crest | The of red and white silk and holding a maple leaf in its right paw. | |
Helm | The arms show a royal helmet, which is a barred helm of gold embossed with a maple leaf design looking outward, with mantling of white and red, stylized in the official version to look like maple leaves.[70] | |
Escutcheon | The escutcheon is divided into five sections.
The first royal France.[72]
The fifth charge, a sprig of red maple leaves at the bottom, is a distinctly Canadian symbol that became gradually identified with the country throughout the 19th century.[73] The arrangement of three leaves on one sprig was first seen on a Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day poster in 1850.[28] They were first proposed as a symbol in 1834, were established in 1868 on the arms of Quebec and Ontario and officially became the national emblem in 1965, with the proclamation of the Flag of Canada.[70] Initially, the leaves were depicted as coloured green on the coat of arms because it was thought to represent youth, as opposed to the red colour of dying leaves in autumn.[18] However, they are blazoned as "proper", so could be shown as either red or green, and it is the blazon, rather than any depiction, which is regarded as authoritative.[27] The leaves were later redrawn in official depictions in 1957 with the current colour to be in line with the official colours of Canada. They are further stylized in that natural maple leaves do not grow in sprigs of three. Beginning in the 1960s, there developed an interpretation of the leaves as symbolic of Canadian multiculturalism; the country's different groups of people separate, but also joined together. There is, however, no record from the designing committee indicates there was any intention behind the particular arrangement of the leaves; the choice of three leaves appears to have been aesthetic.[28] The shield forms the basis of the royal standards of Canada.[61] |
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Ribbon | The ribbon is marked desiderantes meliorem patriam, meaning "desiring a better country", which is the motto of the advice of her Prime Minister.[4] With the patriation of oversight of arms to Canada through the Canadian Heraldic Authority the following year,[74] the constitution of the Order of Canada was amended to include entitlement by all recipients to encircle their own arms with the ribbon if arms are granted to them.[75] Since 1994 the arms used by government ministers and institutions have slowly changed to reflect the new version with the ribbon.[18]
|
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Motto | The motto of Canada is in Latin a mari usque ad mare (From sea to sea), a part of Psalm 72:8.[76] This phrase was suggested by Joseph Pope, then-Under Secretary of State, when the Arms were redesigned in 1921.[31] The motto was originally used in 1906 on the head of the mace of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan.[76]
In March 2006, the premiers of Canada's three territories called for the amendment of the motto to better reflect the vast geographic nature of Canada's territory,[77] as Canada has coastlines on the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans. Two suggestions for a new motto are A mari ad mare ad mare (from sea to sea to sea) and A mari usque ad maria (from the sea to the other seas).[78][79]
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Supporters | Royal Union Flag. The Scottish unicorn[18] has a gold horn, a gold mane, gold hooves, and around its neck a gold, chained coronet of crosses and fleurs-de-lis; it holds a lance flying a banner of royalist France, the three gold fleurs-de-lis on a blue background.[31] Unlike the British version, the lion is not crowned, nor is it facing the viewer. The broken chain on the unicorn symbolizes the unicorn's resistance to oppression.[18]
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Compartment | The entire coat of arms rests on the compartment, which is made up of the floral emblems of the founding nations.[18] The Tudor rose is the floral badge of England and Wales, combining the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster.[31] The thistle and shamrock are the symbols of Scotland and Ireland, respectively, while the fleur-de-lis has been the royal symbol of France since the 12th century.[31][80] |
See also
- Coat of arms of Alberta
- Coat of arms of British Columbia
- Coat of arms of Manitoba
- Coat of arms of New Brunswick
- Coat of arms of Newfoundland and Labrador
- Coat of arms of Nova Scotia
- Coat of arms of Ontario
- Coat of arms of Prince Edward Island
- Coat of arms of Quebec
- Coat of arms of Saskatchewan
- Coat of arms of the Northwest Territories
- Coat of arms of Nunavut
- Coat of arms of Yukon
- List of Canadian provincial and territorial symbols
- National symbols of Canada
- Canadian royal symbols
Notes
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