The Canadian Flag

Father Britain's oldest son, the United States, had always been a bit of a trouble maker. In his rebellious youth, he broke away from his parents, stormed off with claims of being 'misunderstood', and after plenty of bickering decided to live on his own. Canada, the younger brother and son of Father Britain and Mother France, was the good one. We lived quietly and respectfully in the house they bought for us, and we loved our parents; we were the son they always wanted. Our older brother would try to invite us to move out with him and live on his couch, but we politely declined. Later, after the neighbours back at our parents' place started roughing up our family for a few decades in the early to mid 1900s, we came back and helped take care of business like any son would. Once that mess was cleared up, we politely asked if we could officially move out on our own - with the caveat that we'll still remember who helped us out in our fledgling years. We've always honour our father, and we'll probably always will.

And yes.

That's honour with a 'u'.

Although we have been our own country since 1867 (obviously) we have only had our official flag since 1965. When you really think about it, that's incredibly recent. We've passed through plenty of official and semi-official ones over time, but none of them particularly unique to Canada, mostly taking bits and pieces of French and British flags and throwing a Canadian spin on it. Over time, some of those good-hearted Canadians wanted to salute something that represented just their land and not something overseas.

I know you've seen it before, but it's a beautiful flag. I
would totally stand on guard for that.

Way back in the times of New France (1534-1760s) they would view their national symbol as the banner of france - a square blue flag with the familiar Fleurs-de-lys. The British side of old-school Canada flew the Union Jack until around the time of Confederation, in which it was often replaced with the Canadian Red Ensign. The Red Ensign still had the Union Jack at the top left, but also had a frequently changing crest on the right depicting the provinces. As more provinces were added, the symbol became increasingly more confusing - trying to fit all the provinces into one small corner of a flag makes it a little busy, especially when it's meant to be easily identifiable at sea. Often it would be abbreviated, so to speak, by putting three maple leaves at the bottom of the crest and the symbol of the province of origin on the upper half. Even then, the Union Jack itself was also quite often found flying as well, for those that were apparently feeling particularly homesick.

Our first push for a flag of our own came around 1925 - keep in mind that even at this point it's over a half-century after Confederation. The idea was met with a lukewarm response; Canadians were afraid we were about to lose the beloved Union Jack, and the committee chosen to discuss the prospect of a new flag was abandoned after a lack of consensus. We Canadians liked the Union Jack - it may not have been ours, but we could still latch onto it pretty well. If anything, that and our high numbers of volunteer soldiers for the World Wars demonstrates our loyalty to Britain. We were the kid that was just raised right.

The Pearson Pennant; the general consensus was
"it's OK I guess".

Lester B. Pearson, at the time the leader of the official opposition, raised the debate again in 1960. It was a trying time for Canada, as we were in the wake of World War II and French Canada was pushing hard for separation. Mind you, you would be hard pressed to find a time in Canadian history where something like this wasn't happening in Quebec, but maybe back then it felt a little more fresh. Regardless, Pearson hoped to remedy the situation by sparking a bit of unity through a common flag. Canadians were split between the Red Ensign and the Union Jack, this divergence being compounded by the fact that French Canadians thought of their provincial flag as more of a national symbol. A collective flag might stymie the thoughts of separatism, at least for... maybe a couple weeks.

The one second from the right is a crown, not a pie.
Just so you know.

Then Prime Minister Diefenbaker hoped for the flag to respect the countries that helped Canada get its footing in the first place, planning to throw a Union Jack in there as well as some Fleurs-de-lys as to not have the French say "the heck with this" and leave in a huff. Well, "le heck with this" I suppose. Pearson on the other hand wanted nothing of the sort. He wished for a strictly Canadian symbol, one to help separate us as a colony and helping to transform us into a distinct country of our own. To decide, they formed a committee consisting of all parties in the house to decide on what was to fly above Parliament Hill. 

There were an incredible number of flags to choose from, with blue as the typical third colour choice, beavers being strewn about all over the place, and a few stars coming through on occasion as well. While the Pearson Pennant made it to the top three, the committee vote brought it down as Diefenbaker's conservatives thought the liberals would cast their ballot towards Pearson's flag and thus voted for what we currently have, but were found to be incorrect as the liberals weren't a big fan of it in the first place. The result was a unanimous vote for our current flag. On February 15th, 1965 the Red Ensign was taken down and the new, glorious and truly Canadian flag was first unfurled. It wasn't easy, though - the debate in the House to choose to fly the flag or not took six months, had a comical number of speeches (so many that they had to start limiting the time for them) and only then the vote passed by 163-78 - not entirely a crushing victory.

To close, here's a fun fact (and one that sounds, much like our flag, uniquely Canadian). The 1992 World Series featured Toronto and Atlanta, and in the second game the American Marines accidentally brought out our flag upside down. The following game, Canadian fans brought signs that read "No hard feelings" - and held those upside down as well. 

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The information for this blog was taken from www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca, a great resource for all things Canadian.