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Bill of Rights
| The
Flag | FLQ |
Expo
The
great Canadian flag debate became one of the more
emotional and public issues of Lester Pearson's early
years as Prime Minister. Canada's official national flag
was the Union Jack but it had used the red ensign with a
Canadian coat of arms emblazed upon it, in many
circumstances.
As Canada gained a stronger sense of
it's own nationalism during the First World War it began
to look for symbols of that nationhood and in 1925
Mackenzie King introduced the idea of creating a flag
that was uniquely Canadian. A Parliamentary Committee was
created to explore possible designs for a flag and
report back to the House of Commons. That results of the
committee were inconclusive due to symbolism relating to
Britain being included on the flag. The debate became a
yearly exercise in attempting to compromise and failing.
After the Second World War the issue was
revived in earnest but once again broke down over
whether to include a union jack on the flag somewhere
which English MP's were in favour of and French MP's
against. King once again let the debate die down and
then let the issue drop.
In 1963 Pearson felt that the time was
right to try once again but this time he was completely
in favour of eliminating the Union Jack and designing a
completely Canadian style flag. he NDP supported a flag
with a Maple Leaf while Diefenbaker wanted to include
symbols from both French and English cultures. John
Matheson was appointed to formulate a specific proposal
that could b brought to Parliament for a vote. His
committee came up with the current Canadian flag of two
red bars on either side of a white are with a red maple
leaf.
The debate began in
Parliament and dragged on for months but finally was
brought to a vote and was passed by 163 Liberals voting
for it and 73 Conservatives voting against it. The flag
was raised on February 15th, 1965 and has become the
most enduring symbol of Canadian nationalism since that
time.
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