[1] This was done shortly after the Canadian Red Ensign, which had been used unofficially as the national flag, was replaced on February 15, 1965, by a new design featuring a maple leaf.

[1][6][7] There were still parts of Canada where imperial nostalgia was strong, and ruing the demise of the Red Ensign, they sought to have it modified as a provincial flag;[8] this occurred in Ontario (1965)[9] and Manitoba (1966).

[10] In New Brunswick, the parliamentary opposition party – the Progressive Conservatives at that time[11] – had plans to table a motion approving the Red Ensign as the new provincial flag,[8][12] which would have had particularly detrimental ramifications given the province's history of French and British settlement.

[3][13] Consequently, the province was still strongly divided by language, ethnicity, and religion, with English-speaking descendants of British colonists and Loyalists forming the majority and French-speaking Acadians comprising a sizeable minority of approximately 35%.

Pichette worked in secret for three weeks on the design;[8][12] he took inspiration from New Brunswick's coat of arms and decided to make an armorial banner out of it,[8] in what was described as "a striking new artistic interpretation" by vexillologist Whitney Smith.

[1] After he finished a rough draft of his intended end product, Pichette forwarded it to his friend Alan Beddoe – the country's "leading heraldic artist"[8] who designed the Pearson Pennant that was considered for the new national flag – as well as Conrad Swan of the College of Arms in London.

[8] Despite the fact that the Royal Warrant permitted the straightforward inauguration of the new flag,[1] an Order in Council was nonetheless promulgated by the province's Lieutenant Governor on February 24, 1965.

[3] On the other hand, the lymphad occupying the bottom two thirds of the flag may be evoking New Brunswick's historical shipbuilding industry or the ships utilized by numerous Loyalists to land in the province after they fled the United States in the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War.

[1] Although shipbuilding was New Brunswick's dominant economic activity at the time the coat of arms was assigned,[5] the industry declined significantly after Confederation, leading to a period of recession in the province.