EloraaFergusToday received the following letter to the editor from Joe Tersigni:
In many ways, the little-known struggle behind the complex journey of achieving our most cherished Canadian symbol is an intriguing one. The fight to get the Maple Leaf was a long, tough battle that threatened to split the country. It nearly came to fists and blows in many parts of Canada. It had even been reported that one member of Parliament had apparently challenged another to a duel!
President Valera of Ireland warned Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson that the idea of a new flag for Canada was political suicide. “To get a new flag accepted, you have to have blood on it,” he said, and then jokingly suggested that Pearson take his proposal down to the American border to get some friends to take shots at it.
It was 60 years ago on February 15, 1965, that our very first official National Flag was hoisted atop the Peace Tower in Ottawa. I suspect that very few Canadians, especially the younger generation, will celebrate or even know the significance of this momentous day in Canadian History.
From our earliest days, the Maple Leaf had emerged as a very recognizable symbol of our Canadian culture and identity. You could find it in books, songs, and on coins. During World War 1, Canadian soldiers used the Maple Leaf as a cap badge. A single Maple Leaf was also carved on the headstones of men and women who served in both world wars.
The controversy over a new flag started in 1963 when a passionate national debate was stirred up across the nation by Prime Minister Pearson. He promised that within two years, before Canada’s Centennial, the country would have an official flag. He delivered on that promise but took a lot of heat along the way. Pearson’s pennant plans had many enemies. The country was divided.
For veterans and their families, the British Union Jack and the Canadian Red Ensign were the banners under which Canada had gone to war. Thousands had fought and died under these symbols. Many Canadians, British immigrants, and descendants of the United Empire Loyalists who were strongly attached to their British heritage would not budge from the Union Jack. They were not about to surrender.
Dreams of a new flag had faded away with several of our Prime Ministers. William Lyon Mackenzie King feared it would create political turmoil and backed off the idea twice. R.B. Bennett briefly considered the idea of a new flag, and John Diefenbaker…head strong… would have nothing to do with it and had consistently pleaded for the life of the Red Ensign.
Pierre Trudeau, a Law professor in the late 1950s, charged that Quebecers really didn’t give a “tinker’s dam” about the issue. In fact, many Quebecers had demanded that a fleur-de-lis should be used as a new symbol for a Canadian flag.
Pearson, Liberal opposition leader in 1960, really kick started the issue once and for all when he proposed a new flag plan that was nicknamed the “Pearson Pennant” – a sprig of three red maple leaves – like the ones used on our coat of arms.
The proposal helped to spark a nationalistic fervour which began to spread among many young Canadians who felt that maybe it was time that we followed the path of the Americans by adopting a made-in-Canada flag of our own.
Former Toronto Maple Leaf legend and Liberal MP Red Kelly reported that Leaf owner Conn Smythe had written every member in the House of Commons because he fought and got wounded for Canada under the Red Ensign and did not want it changed.
In 1964, a parliamentary committee was formed to start making recommendations for a new national flag. Arguments for and against the red and white flag exploded in Parliament. The battle lines had been drawn!
On May 17, 1964, Pearson himself beat a hasty retreat to Ottawa after shouts of “NO, NO, NO,” and boos and hisses blasted in his ears from hard core veterans at The Royal Canadian Legion convention in Winnipeg. Still, he refused to back down on his distinctly home-made Canadian flag plan. On Parliament Hill, Pearson stood firm against the placard carrying protestors waving the Union Jack and singing, “God Save the Queen.”
Meanwhile, Conservative leader John Diefenbaker, his eyes blazing, and finger stabbing the air went on a rampage in Parliament, charging that Pearson’s Design, (three red maple leaves, joined at one stem, with blue borders for the oceans), ignored our British and French heritage.
After six months of bitter, angry debate and over 300 speeches in the House of Commons, something had to give and give soon. Canadian journalist Rick Archbold described the debates as, “among the ugliest in the history of the House of Commons.”
Outside the Commons, young Canadians from across the country still wanted their say. The Parliamentary mailroom was swamped with over three-thousand designs incorporating everything from beavers munching on birch trees, Canada Geese flying over the Union Jack, a buffalo head, a big wave, mountains and prairie scenes with fish and geese to the Northern Lights shining over the Arctic Ocean. Several designs jokingly even included the Fab Four – the Beatles in all four corners of a new flag with the Maple Leaf in the middle!
The crisis simmered when a new design, (a single Maple Leaf and two red borders), emerged from George Stanley – a military historian and professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston. It was the military college’s design that inspired Stanley’s proposal.
Pearson was not keen on the Kingston proposal, but the deadlock was broken in the early morning hours of December 15, 1964, when Stanley’s flag design passed in Parliament 163-78.
Today, the Canadian Encyclopedia lists the Maple Leaf Flag as one of the most significant events in our history that has left “an indelible mark on the lives of the people of the time and an indisputable memory in the minds of later generations.”
In war and peacetime, our national flag in its striking simplicity, has become one of the strongest unifying forces in our country and one of the most recognizable symbols around the world. Our Maple Leaf Flag speaks to all that we have accomplished together as a country and a people. It defines who we are.
158 Canadians gave their lives in the Afghan War. They died fighting for freedom and democracy in a country ravaged by injustice and civil war. They fought and died under our flag.
Canadians must never forget the fight to get our own made in Canada flag. It was a fight for the heart and soul of this country.
Now, more than ever, Canadians must STAND UP, DEFEND, and SHARE our pride in the Maple Leaf Flag…a National Flag that says to the world and to the future…WE STAND FOR CANADA!
TRUE NORTH…STRONG AND FREE!
– Joe Tersigni
