Great Canadian flag debate
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, Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier raised the Union Jack over Parliament, where it remained until the re-emergence of the Red Ensign in the 1920s.
William Lyon Mackenzie King tried to adopt a new Canadian national flag in 1925 and 1946,[3] having received a recommendation that came back as a Red Ensign design that replaced the coat of arms of Canada 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.
[6]The Progressive Conservative government of the time, headed by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, did not accept the invitation to establish a new Canadian flag.
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.
[10] 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.
Pearson's first design featured the three maple leaves on a white background, with vertical blue bars to either side.
[3] 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.
Diefenbaker led the opposition to the Maple Leaf flag, arguing for the retention of the Canadian Red Ensign.
3,541 entries were submitted: many contained common elements: At the last minute, John Matheson slipped a flag designed by historian George Stanley into the mix.
Stanley submitted a March 23, 1964 formal detailed memorandum[14] to Matheson on the history of Canada's emblems, predating Pearson's raising the issue, in which he warned that any new flag "must avoid the use of national or racial symbols that are of a divisive nature" and that it would be "clearly inadvisable" to create a flag that carried either a Union Jack or a Fleur-de-lis.
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, 1964, with Balcer and the other francophone Conservatives swinging behind the Liberals.
The Union Jack, or the "Royal Union Flag", as it would be officially termed in the parliamentary resolution, would be put alongside the new flag at federal government buildings, federally-operated airports, military installations, at the masthead of Royal Canadian Navy ships within Canadian waters, and at other appropriate establishments on Commonwealth Day, Victoria Day (the monarch's official birthday in Canada), 11 December (the anniversary of the enactment of the Statute of Westminster 1931), and when otherwise instructed to do so by the National Defence Headquarters.
[18] 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 Vanier, the prime minister, the members of the Cabinet, and Canadian parliamentarians.
[21] British Columbia's flag, which features the Union Jack in its top portion, was introduced in 1960 and is actually based on the shield of the provincial coat of arms, which dates back to 1906.
