History of our Remembrance Day Flags

History of our Remembrance Day Flags

The Flag Shop offers three designs to commemorate Remembrance Day. Our third design, called "We Remember", is part of our permanent product line and we expect to offer it for many years to come. Our first and second designs are only available while quantities last and will not be reprinted once they are all sold.

Offering a Remembrance Day flag has been a time-consuming yet educational experience. Many of our customers have been confused about whether or not we offer a Remembrance Day flag, which prompted Susan Braverman, the President & CEO of The Flag Shop Vancouver, to explain the history of our three Remembrance Day designs.

In 2011 after many requests for a flag specifically to commemorate Remembrance Day, we designed a flag and a set of banners to offer our customers, Canadians, and anyone who wished to commemorate civilians and military personnel who lost their lives in armed conflicts. Our first design with the photo-realistic open flowers and "Lest We Forget" was quite popular at its launch, but we then stopped selling them after receiving a cease and desist letter from the Royal Canadian Legion.

Because the response to our Remembrance Day flags was extremely positive, we decided to modify our designs so that our flowers would not look anything like the Legion’s poppy, which is trademarked and was the focus of the Legion's cease and desist letter. Because the Legion's poppy is "open", which exposes the flower's "black centre", we redesigned our flower so that it was "closed", making the flower's centre no longer visible. We truly believed that this modification would resolve the Legion's issue with us. However soon after launching our new Remembrance Day designs, the Legion issued a second cease and desist letter, stating that they owned the copyright to the phrase "Lest we forget" and therefore we could not use it.

Susan Braverman was still adamant that The Flag Shop needed to offer a Remembrance Day flag. Out of this determination, the third design, called We Remember, was created. With the modified flower and revised wording, we were confident that we would not be in violation of any copyrights. However, shortly after launching the new design, the Legion issued a third cease and desist letter, stating that they had the copyright on anything to do with Remembrance Day. At this point, Susan decided to remove the Remembrance Day flags from The Flag Shop website, with the intention of revisiting this issue in the future.

As November 11, 2013 approached, requests from across Canada started coming in for Remembrance Day flags. At the request of many people, Susan decided to re-examine the feasibility of offering Remembrance Day flags, and in doing so was very pleased to learn that none of The Flag Shop’s designs violate the Royal Canadian Legion's "poppy" copyrights, despite what the Legion says. Consequently all three Remembrance Day designs are available through The Flag Shop's website, with the "Lest We Forget" designs available only while quantities last.

The Flag Shop has no affiliation with the Royal Canadian Legion, nor does the Legion endorse The Flag Shop's Remembrance Day flags. However, The Flag Shop will be donating a portion from the sale of these flags to the Royal Canadian Legion’s Poppy Fund to support our Legions. For more information about the Poppy Fund, please click here.

For more information about The Flag Shop’s Remembrance Day flags and banners, please contact Susan Braverman at president@flagshop.com.