Great Canadian Flag Debate - Prelude

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 distinctive 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... 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 re-emergence 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. Mackenzie King also tried to give Canada a new flag. The recommendation that came back was a Red Ensign, but substituting the coat of arms of Canada with a gold maple leaf. Mackenzie King stopped the venture.

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 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, so 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 for Canada. The 1963 election brought the Liberals back to power, but with a minority government. 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 Flag as a sign of Canadian ties to the United Kingdom and to other Commonwealth countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, that use the Union Flag in the quarter of their national flag.