including a request in 2000 to acquire the flag for the ceremonies surrounding the dedication of Canada's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. David Penn, Keeper of Exhibits and Firearms at the Imperial War Museum, called the flag "our most important First World War Commonwealth artifact". Eventually, after months of negotiations involving the Royal Canadian Legion, the Imperial War Museum agreed to lend the flag to Canada to commemorate the opening of the new Canadian War Museum in Ottawa in 2005. The flag was returned to the United Kingdom in 2008. There is another Red Ensign in existence that was reportedly carried by Canadian troops at the Battle of Vimy Ridge, currently held by the Penticton Museum and Archives in Penticton, British Columbia. It is a simple red ensign, without a coat of arms. Usage today Though much less common than either the Maple Leaf or modern provincial flags, the several versions of the Canadian Red Ensign continue to be flown today both in official and unofficial capacities. In view of its association with the Canadian Army during the world wars, it is flown alongside the Maple Leaf flag at numerous war memorials, including the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France. It is also used by veterans' groups, and is part of the official colour party (together with the Maple Leaf) of the Royal Canadian Legion. The flag is sometimes flown on vintage ships, and at heritage sites where it is historically accurate. In the 2010s, some far right, white nationalist or white supremacist groups have co-opted the red ensign, displaying it either alongside or instead of the Maple Leaf as a symbol of a monoculturally white Canada. These include the Aryan Guard, the founder of the Canadian Nazi Party, white nationalist leader Paul Fromm, and the five members of the Proud Boys who disrupted an indigenous protest on Canada Day in July 2017. The flag's appropriation by white supremacists has produced an outcry from several groups, including the Royal Canadian Legion, the Canadian Centre for the Great War, and the editor of the history journal The Dorchester Review, who have expressed the view that "trivializing, or treating as a kind of talisman of defiance, a flag that has a much more venerable and mainstream role" is not right and "flies in the face of what the Red Ensign means". Variations Before the design of the Red Ensign was standardized in