History of the Canadian Flag

First of all, happy 60th anniversary of the Canadian flag.

The Canadian Red Ensign (1892-1965). Public Domain

Since Canada was a former British colony, it used the Union Jack and the Red Ensign of the colony of Canada. The symbols of Canada used symbols to represent the land and nautical for provincial affairs. The first design of the flag used three green maple leaves on the crest, but it also had a crown and a beaver (the national animal). The red ensign was used from 1892 to 1965.

The identity of the maple leaf became synonymous with the Canadian Brigade fighting in World War One when it was used on the cap badges worn by members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Then, it was used on tombstones of fallen soldiers with singular embossed maple leaf in the stone during the two World Wars. At the time, it stood for courage, pride, and loyalty.

There were many attempts during the 1920s to 1940s to redesign the flag to have a more permanent flag identity by PM Lyon Mackenzie King’s government, but there was instability within his government, shelving the project completely. Furthermore, after the Second World War, many people had opinions about changing the flag to another design instead of leaving the flags of the Union Jack and the Red Ensign alone because most of the soldiers died under that flag, plus many were still very attached to the British identity.

Years later in 1960, then-Leader of the Opposition Lester B. Pearson pointed out to make Canada look more like a unified independent country to address the “flag problem.” When Lester B. Pearson won the election to be Prime Minister of Canada in 1963, it was one of his mandates to complete especially to have it ready for the bicentennial celebration in 1967.

A parliamentary committee with designers and parliamentarians to create the new national flag within six weeks.

There was a lot of debate about the flag and whether a new symbol should have been created for future use versus using an iconic symbol from the national crest to design the new flag. This was known as the Great Flag Debate which took place between 1963 to 1964. It took more than six months to find the new flag design.

The Pearson Pennant (1964)
Public Domain.

The first concept of the redesign was called a Pearson Pennant by Alan Beddoe. It used maple leaves inspired by the national emblem against a white background with two blue stripes on opposite sides. It was to represent “From sea to sea” the national motto which is an excerpt of King James Bible’s Psalm 72:8. It was rejected in 1964.

A last-minute entry came courtesy of George Stanley was inspired by his college’s flag, the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, where he worked as the Dean of Arts. Stanley recommended a single red maple leaf on a white background with two red borders.

“The single leaf has the virtue of simplicity. It emphasizes the distinctive Canadian symbol and suggests the idea of loyalty to a single country.”
George Stanley on the instructions about the creation of the flag in 1965 to MP John Matheson.

The Canadian Flag Design by George Stanley

An excerpt page sent to John Matheson has two sketches of the possible design choices he came up with. One was the more recognizable symbol we see today, and the other one was the flag if the borders were on the top and bottom of the flag with the maple leaf in the centre. The white square in the centre did invent a new design called the Canadian Pale. The vertical band that runs down the middle of a shield or flag is called a pale, a heraldic term meaning a vertical band. The Canadian Pale is twice as wide as the usual pale.

The maple leaf in the centre is a 13-point maple leaf by graphic artist Jacques St-Cyr in 1964. The flag was later redesigned with an 11-point maple leaf. Jacques St-Cyr also ran the flag through wind-tunnel tests to see how the flag could appear from a distance. Some people believe the points on the leaf represent all of the 10 provinces and, at the time, two territories (Yukon and NWT), but that is partially a myth.

There were 13 finalists for the national flag. George Stanley’s design won because of the simplistic look of the single maple leaf. It didn’t allude to the Union Jack, the Fleur de Lys or represent anything about the colonial past to avoid controversy. Around the same time in the 1960s when the flag was being designed, the Quiet Revolution was on the rise which was about Québécois nationalism, a political and economic movement of independence, and Anglophone and Francophone tensions. The flag was about unity and emphasized that Canada was not a colony.

The thank you note informing Stanley from Matheson states on December 17th, 1964, the senators voted 38 to 23 in favour of the Maple Leaf flag. On January 28th, 1965, it was signed into proclamation by Queen Elizabeth II as the official flag. It was inaugurated in a public ceremony on Parliament Hill with a flag-raising ceremony at noon as it retired the old Red Ensign flag with a speech by PM Pearson on February 15th, 1965.

The Maple Leaf Has A Symbol

The symbolism of the maple leaf to represent Canada is seen on most Canadian products, businesses, websites, etc. The symbol of the maple leaf in marketing is to mark what is a Canadian product. It’s a recognizable symbol almost like a heart can represent love. The historical connection of the maple leaf to Canadian culture started when the first settlers noticed Indigenous people were using the maple tree for a multitude of uses for medicine, building traps, making tools, collecting the sap that was rendered into syrup or sugar, and smoking meats for preservation. They would share their knowledge with the newcomers who adapted these methods to increase production for themselves to export maple production to other North American and European markets.