What does the fleur-de-lys symbolize in Canada?

The fleur-de-lys, French for 'lily flower', is a stylised heraldic emblem of a lily that has represented French royalty and France itself since the twelfth century. In Canada it stands for the country's French heritage and is most visible on the flag of Quebec, the Fleurdelisé, adopted as the provincial flag on January 21, 1948 under Premier Maurice Duplessis. The flag carries a white cross on an azure (blue) field with a white fleur-de-lys in each of the four corners.

The fleur-de-lys appears in three other places on the Royal Coat of Arms of Canada granted in 1921. Three gold fleurs-de-lys on a blue field appear on the third quarter of the shield, representing the historic Royal Banner of France. The unicorn supporter holds the Royal Banner of France, a blue flag scattered with gold fleurs-de-lys. A wreath of fleurs-de-lys appears on the compartment below the shield, alongside the rose, thistle, and shamrock of the other founding peoples.

The fleur-de-lys arrived in what is now Canada with French explorers in the early sixteenth century. Jacques Cartier raised the cross of Saint-Malo and the royal flag of King Francis I at Gaspé in July 1534. Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec City in 1608 under the same banner. New France used the fleur-de-lys as a defining emblem until the British conquest in 1759 to 1763, and the symbol re-emerged in Canadian heraldry through the nineteenth-century French-Canadian nationalist movements.

Today the fleur-de-lys is most strongly associated with Quebec but appears on Canadian municipal arms, the badges of the Royal 22e Régiment (the Van Doos), the Saskatchewan Provincial Coat of Arms, and the diocesan arms of many Canadian Catholic dioceses. Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day on June 24, the national holiday of Quebec, prominently features the Fleurdelisé in parades from Montreal to Quebec City to Sudbury and beyond.