Premier Dwight Ball guaranteed a review of official symbols such as the provincial coat of arms last weekend, as had been promoted by Torngat Mountains MHA Randy Edmunds.
The resolution was brought forward because the provincial coat of arms is considered outdated, as it depicts a 17-century understanding of what Europeans thought the Beothuk wore and how they looked.
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Beyond that, there is an elk on top of the coat of arms, an animal that isn’t native to the province.
While the depiction is historically inaccurate in retrospect, the coat of arms, which was created in 1638 but dropped soon after, was officially reintroduced in the 1920s after the Imperial War Graves Commission sought a coat of arms to use to memorialize Newfoundland’s contributions to the First World War in France.
The Telegram took to the streets to see how people felt about changing the coat of arms. What do you think? Take our poll below.
— “It is kind of antiquated so it’s probably due for an update, especially if the representations of Indigenous people are not accurate. Definitely time for a change.” — Adrian House, St. John’s“We move on together as one people, regardless of the colour of our skin, or our heritage, or where we immigrated from. … We can put it in the books of history, but we cannot put it as an emblem for today.” — Tumisang Mabula, South Africa“When it comes to the depiction of the people in it, I guess I’d … leave it up to the closest descendants of those people and see how they feel about it. … It’s not really up to me. Maybe if you wanted to talk about how Scottish people were depicted, I’d have more of an opinion. I’m not afraid of change. It’s not like we’re going to burn all the old ones and pretend it never existed. It’s just a part of history.” — Ian Gillies, St. John’s“They should have something that reflects Newfoundland culture (while) considering aboriginal people. They don’t need to separate aboriginal from (Newfoundland). (Aboriginal people) are an important part of the culture, but they should add the actual Newfoundland culture.” — Hamed Abubaker, Sudan“Don’t use this, man. It breaks our unity.” — Suborno Debnath, Bangladesh
