Great Canadian flag debate
The Great Canadian flag debate was a national debate that took place in 1963 and 1964 when a new design for the national flag of Canada was chosen.
Although the flag debate had been going on for a long time prior, it officially began on June 15, 1964, when Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson proposed his plans for a new flag in the House of Commons. The debate lasted more than six months and bitterly dividing politicians and the general public over the design of a new Canadian flag. The debate over the proposed new Canadian flag was ended by closure on December 15, 1964. It resulted in the adoption of the "Maple Leaf" as the Canadian national flag, which remains the official national flag of Canada.
The flag was inaugurated on February 15, 1965, a date that has been commemorated as National Flag of Canada Day since 1996.
Background
Union Jack and Red Ensign
The Union Jack served as the formal flag for various colonies in British North America, and remained as the formal national flag of Canada from Confederation to 1965. However, from the late 19th century to 1965, the civil ensign, the Canadian Red Ensign, was also used as an unofficial national flag and symbol for Canada.The first Canadian Red Ensigns were used in Prime Minister 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... has come to be considered as the recognized flag of the Dominion, both ashore and afloat.
Under pressure from pro-imperial public opinion, Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier raised the Union Jack over the Parliament buildings' Victoria Tower, where it remained until the re-emergence of the Red Ensign in the 1920s.
William Lyon Mackenzie King tried to adopt a new national flag in 1925 and 1946, having received a recommendation that came back as a Red Ensign design that replaced the coat of arms with a gold maple leaf in 1946. However, ongoing fears that the change might lead to political instability resulted in Mackenzie King shelving the project. A compromise was reached where the government would fly the Canadian Red Ensign as a "distinctive Canadian flag" on government buildings, but maintain the Union Jack as the national flag.
In 1958, an extensive poll was taken of the attitudes that adult Canadians held toward the flag. Of those who expressed opinions, over 80 per cent wanted a national flag entirely different from that of any other nation, and 60 per cent wanted their flag to bear the maple leaf. In April 1963, an opinion poll of 2,262 Canadians found that 52% supported a new national flag for Canada of its own, while 30% preferred using the Union Jack and 18% preferred using the Canadian Red Ensign. There was sharp division, however, between linguistic groups in their preferences. Whereas 90% of Francophones preferred a new national flag, only 35% of Anglophones desired this. Combined, the Union Jack and Red Ensign commanded the support of 65% of English Canadians.
Lester B. Pearson
From his office as leader of the opposition, Lester Pearson issued a press release on January 27, 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 Progressive Conservative government of the time, headed by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, did not accept the invitation to establish a new Canadian flag. As a result, Pearson made it Liberal Party policy in 1961, and part of the party's election platform in the 1962 and 1963 federal elections. 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. The 1963 election brought the Liberals back to power, but with a minority government. Pearson had been a significant broker during the Suez Crisis of 1956, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. During the crisis, Pearson was disturbed when the Egyptian government objected to Canadian peacekeeping forces because the Canadian flag contained the same symbol used as a flag by the United Kingdom, one of the belligerents. Pearson's goal was to create a flag that was distinctive and unmistakably Canadian. The main opponent to changing the flag was the leader of the opposition and former prime minister, John Diefenbaker, who eventually made the subject a personal crusade.
In February 1964, a design with three red leaves and two blue edge borders was leaked to the press. At the 20th Royal Canadian Legion Convention in Winnipeg on May 17, 1964, Pearson faced an unsympathetic audience of Legionnaires and told them that the time had come to replace the Canadian Red Ensign with a distinctive maple leaf flag. The Royal Canadian Legion and the Canadian Corps Association wanted the new flag to include the Union Jack as a sign of ties to the United Kingdom and to other Commonwealth countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, that use the Union Jack in the quarter of their national flag.
Lester Pearson's preferred choice for a new flag was nicknamed the "Pearson Pennant". Pearson's first design featured the three maple leaves on a white background, with vertical blue bars to either side. Pearson preferred this choice, as the blue bars reflected Canada's motto, "from sea to sea".
Parliamentary debate begins
Opening resolution
On June 15, 1964, Pearson opened the parliamentary flag debate with a resolution:The flag proposed by Pearson, referred to as "the Pearson Pennant", was designed by Alan Beddoe. Pearson sought to produce a flag which embodied history and tradition, but he also wanted to excise the Union Jack as a reminder of Canada's heritage and links to the United Kingdom. Hence, the issue was not whether the maple leaf was pre-eminently Canadian, but rather whether the nation should exclude the British-related component from its identity.
Diefenbaker opposition
Diefenbaker led the opposition to the Maple Leaf flag, arguing for the retention of the Canadian Red Ensign. Diefenbaker and his lieutenants mounted a filibuster. The seemingly endless debate raged on 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.On September 10, 1964, 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 Member of Parliament John Matheson, said that they "were asked to produce a flag for Canada and in six weeks!"
Special flag committee
On September 10, 1964, a committee of 15 Members of Parliament was announced. It was made up of seven Liberals, five Conservatives and one each from the New Democratic Party, the Social Credit Party and the Ralliement créditiste.The Committee members were as follows:
| Member | Party | Electoral district |
| Liberal | Humber—St. George's, Newfoundland | |
| Liberal | Terrebonne, Quebec | |
| Liberal | Vancouver Quadra, British Columbia | |
| Liberal | Restigouche—Madawaska, New Brunswick | |
| PC | Victoria—Carleton, New Brunswick | |
| Liberal | Winnipeg South, Manitoba | |
| Ralliement créditiste | Mégantic, Quebec | |
| Social Credit | Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec | |
| Liberal | Hamilton West, Ontario | |
| Liberal | Leeds, Ontario | |
| PC | Perth, Ontario | |
| PC | Okanagan Boundary, British Columbia | |
| PC | Humboldt—Melfort—Tisdale, Saskatchewan | |
| PC | Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, Quebec | |
| NDP | Danforth, Ontario |
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 lengthy 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
- 359 contained Fleurs-de-lys