The Canadian Great Flag Debate took place in 1964 when a new design for the national flag was chosen. The Great Flag Debate began on 15 June 1964, when Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson tabled his plans for a new flag in the House of Commons. It lasted more than six months, bitterly dividing the people in the process. The debate over the proposed new Canadian Flag ended by closure on 15 December 1964. It resulted in the adoption of the "Maple Leaf flag" as the Canadian national flag.

Prelude

For much of its post-Confederation history, Canada used both the Royal Union Flag (Union Jack) as its national flag, and the Canadian Red Ensign as a popularly recognized and distinctively Canadian flag.

The first Canadian Red Ensigns were used in Sir John A. Macdonald's time. The Governor General at the time of Macdonald's death, Lord Stanley, wrote to London in 1891:

... the Dominion Government has encouraged by precept and example the use on all public buildings throughout the provinces of the Red Ensign with the Canadian badge on the fly ... [which] has come to be considered as the recognized flag of the Dominion, both ashore and afloat.

Under pressure from pro-imperial public opinion, Sir Wilfrid Laurier raised the Union Flag over Parliament, where it remained until the reemergence of the Red Ensign in the 1920s. In 1945, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, having flown the Union Jack over Parliament throughout the war, made the Canadian Red Ensign the official Canadian flag by Order-in-Council.

In 1958, an extensive poll was taken of the attitudes that adult Canadians held toward the flag. Of those who expressed opinions, over 80% wanted a national flag entirely different from that of any other nation, and 60% wanted their flag to bear the maple leaf.

From his office as leader of the opposition, Pearson issued a press release on 27 January 1960 in which he summarized the problem and presented his suggestion as:

... Canadian Government taking full responsibility as soon as possible for finding a solution to the flag problem, by submitting to Parliament a measure which, if accepted by the representatives of the people in Parliament, would, I hope, settle the problem.

The Diefenbaker government of the day did not accept the invitation to establish a new Canadian flag, so Pearson made it Liberal Party policy in 1961, and part of the election platform in 1962 and 1963. During the election campaign of 1963 Pearson promised that Canada would have a new flag within two years of his election. No previous party leader had ever gone as far as Pearson did, by putting a time limit on finding a new national flag for Canada. The election of the spring of 1963 brought the Liberals back to power, but with a minority government. After the election the pressure to keep the current flag or to choose a new one started to build. In February 1964, a three-leaf design was leaked to the press. At the 20th Royal Canadian Legion (RCL) Convention in Winnipeg on May 17, 1964, Pearson faced an unsympathetic audience of Canadian Legionnaires and told them that the time had come to replace the red ensign with a distinctive maple leaf flag. The Royal Canadian Legion, as well as The Canadian Corps Association, wanted to make sure that the new flag would include the Union Jack as a sign of Canadian ties to the United Kingdom.

Parliamentary debate starts on June 15, 1964

On June 15, 1964, Pearson opened the parliamentary flag debate with a resolution:

… to establish officially as the flag of Canada a flag embodying the emblem proclaimed by His Majesty King George V on November 21, 1921 — three maple leaves conjoined on one stem — in the colours red and white then designated for Canada, the red leaves occupying a field of white between vertical sections of blue on the edges of the flag.

Pearson sought to produce a flag which embodied history and tradition, but he also thought that time had come for Canada to cut the umbilical cord of the banner of the United Kingdom. So the issue wasn't whether the maple leaf was pre-eminently Canadian, but whether the nation was pre-eminently Canadian.

John Diefenbaker led the opposition to the Maple Leaf flag arguing for the retention of the Canadian Red Ensign. Diefenbaker and his traditionalist lieutenants mounted a filibuster. The seemingly endless debate raged in Parliament and the press with no side giving quarter. Pearson forced members of Parliament to stay over the summer, but that did not help. Then on September 10, the Prime Minister yielded to the suggestion that the matter be referred to a special flag committee. The key member of the 15-person panel, Liberal MP John Matheson recalled, "…we were asked to produce a flag for Canada and in six weeks!"

Special flag committee September 10, 1964

On September 10, 1964, a committee of 15 Members of Parliament was appointed. It was made up of seven Liberals, five Conservatives and one each from the NDP, the Social Credit Party and the Ralliement Creditiste. The Conservatives at first saw this event as a victory, for they knew that all previous flag committees had suffered miscarriages. During the next six weeks the committee held 35 tormenting meetings. Thousands of suggestions also poured in from a public engaged in what had become a great Canadian debate about identity and how best to represent it.

3,541 entries were submitted: many contained common elements:

• 2,136 contained maple leaves,
• 408 contained Union Jacks,
• 389 contained beavers, and
• 359 contained Fleurs-de-lys.

At the last minute, Matheson slipped a flag designed by historian George Stanley into the mix. The idea was said to have come to him while standing in front of the Mackenzie Building of the Royal Military College of Canada, while viewing the college flag flying in the wind. The design put forward had a single red maple leaf on a white plain background, flanked by two red borders, based on the design of the flag of the Royal Military College. The voting was held on October 22, 1964, when the committee’s final contest pitted Pearson’s pennant against Stanley’s. Assuming that the Liberals would vote for the Prime Minister’s design, the Conservatives backed Stanley. They were outmanoeuvered by the Liberals who had agreed with others to choose the Stanley Maple Leaf flag. The Liberals voted for the red and white flag, making the selection unanimous (14 - 0).

House of Commons

The committee had made its decision, but not the House of Commons. Diefenbaker would not budge, so the debate continued for six weeks as the Conservatives launched a filibuster. The debate was prolonged until one of Diefenbaker's own senior members, Léon Balcer, and the Créditiste, Réal Caouette, advised the government to cut off debate by applying closure. Pearson did so, and after some 250 speeches, the final vote adopting the Stanley flag took place at 2:15 on the morning of December 15, with Balcer and the other francophone Conservatives swinging behind the Liberals. The committee's recommendation was accepted 163 to 78. On the afternoon of December 15, the Commons also voted in favour of continued use of the Union Flag as a symbol of Canada's allegiance to the Crown and its membership in the Commonwealth of Nations. Senate approval followed on December 17. The "Royal Union Flag", as it would be officially termed, would be put alongside the new flag on days of Commonwealth significance.

Aftermath

On Christmas Eve 1964, Queen Elizabeth II approved the Maple Leaf flag. She signed the Royal Proclamation on January 28, 1965, when both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition were in London attending the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill.

The flag was inaugurated on February 15, 1965, at an official ceremony held on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in the presence of Governor General Major-General Georges P. Vanier, the prime minister, the members of the Cabinet, and Canadian parliamentarians. Also throughout Canada, at the United Nations in New York City, and at Canadian legations and on Canadian ships throughout the world, the Canadian Red Ensign was lowered and the Maple Leaf flag was raised.

Despite the preceding acrimony, the new flag was largely quickly embraced by the public as a distinctive emblem of Canada. This would not be the case for Diefenbaker, however. Diefenbaker can be seen on film looking the other way as the Maple Leaf flag is raised on Parliament Hill for the first time. In accordance with his will, at Diefenbaker's funeral the Ensign was placed over the Maple Leaf flag on his casket.

Attachment to the old Canadian Red Ensign persisted for quite a while for many people, especially veterans. In 1967 the Canadian Government first used the Canadian Coat of Arms (whose shield was used on the red ensign) on a red flag for the nation's centennial celebrations [1]. It was designed to appeal to those who were used to the Red Ensign and had not yet become accustomed to the Maple Leaf Flag. The Canadian Red Ensign itself can be frequently seen today across Canada, usually in connection to veterans' associations.

Since 1996, February 15 has been commemorated as Flag Day.

See also

• Canadian Duality Flag
• Australian flag debate
• New Zealand flag debate

Sources

• Canadian Encyclopedia
• The Flags of Canada, by Alistair B. Fraser.
• Canada, flag proposals
• Dr. George F.G. Stanley's Flag Memorandum, 23 March 1964

External links

• Video clip
• CBC Digital Archives - The Great Canadian Flag Debate
• Story of the Red Ensign
• Great Flag Debate continues over Vimy Ridge anniversary

Bibliography

• Albinski, H.S. (1967) "Politics and biculturalism in Canada: The flag debate". Australian Journal of Politics and History, 13. 169-188.
• Band, C.P. & Stovel, E.L. (1925) Our Flag: A Concise Illustrated History. Toronto, ON: Musson Book Co.
• Canada House of Commons. (1964) December 14, 1964 Session. Debates. 11075-11086.
• Pearson's speech of June 15, 1964 can be found in its entirety in the Canada: House of Commons Debates, IV (1964), pp. 4306-4309, 4319-26
• Champion, C.P. "A Very British Coup: Canadianism, Quebec, and Ethnicity in the Flag Debate, 1964-1965." Journal of Canadian Studies 40.3 (2006) 68-99. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3683/is_200610/ai_n17194033/pg_27
• Diefenbaker, J.G. (1977) The Tumultuous Years 1962-1967 in One Canada: Memoirs of the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker. Scarborough, ON: Macmillan. V.3.
• Fraser, A.B. (1991) "A Canadian flag for Canada". Journal of Canadian Studies, v.25. 64-79.
• Fraser, A.B. "The Flags of Canada". http://fraser.cc/FlagsCan/index.html
• Granatstein, J.L. (1986) Canada: 1957-1967: The Years of Uncertainty and Innovation. Toronto, ON: McClelland and Stewart.
• Kelly, K. (1964) "Closure Day in Parliament: Flag debate may die in Commons, revive in Senate". Chronicle Herald Dec. 15, 1964. 1, 6.
• Matheson, J.R. "Lester Pearson and the flag, 1960-1964" in Canada’s Flag: A Search for a Country http://collections.ic.gc.ca/flag/html/contents.htm
• Stanley, G.F.G. (1965) The Story of Canada's Flag: A Historical Sketch. Toronto: Ryerson Press.