The Maple Leaf Forever

Just in Time local history series

Some 30 years ago, Randy Read, a local educator, wrote a song to commemorate the opening of Dr. George Hall Public School in Little Britain. One of the lines in this song unintentionally evokes one of the most divisive debates in Canadian history: “We always think of who we are/As our flag’s unfurled.”

For those watching the maple leaf flag being hoisted into position on Monday Feb. 15, 1965, the question of who we are – or rather, who we were – was a matter of great national importance.

The story of how Canada’s national flag came to be is well-known. Faced with a vocal separatist movement in Quebec, the Lester Pearson ministry committed itself to designing a new national flag – one that featured neither explicitly British nor explicitly French symbols.

There’s more to the story, though.

Historian C.P. Champion, in his 2010 book The Strange Demise of British Canada: The Liberals and Canadian Nationalism, 1964-1968, makes a compelling argument against the prevailing theory that the new flag was a “purely Canadian” innovation. The colours of red and white were historically associated with England and France, respectively. They were also derived directly from England’s St. George’s Cross, and – along with the maple leaf insignia – had been used in various decorations and medals during the colonial period. Moreover, Champion observes, the individuals tasked with designing the new flag were themselves products of an Anglo-Celtic upbringing. Not only was the new flag not a “purely Canadian” concept, its design process was not exactly pan-Canadian, either.

But these nuances were scarcely top of mind for many people in small towns such as Lindsay.

Many citizens were of the opinion that the existing Canadian flag – known as the Red Ensign, which had itself evolved in appearance over time – was good enough, and what was needed was better education about what it represented. Granton B. Carr, of Woodville, was one of those subscribing to this position. “Drive through the country and see how many school flags you (can) see,” Carr wrote in a letter published by the Lindsay Daily Post on March 20, 1963. “Whose fault is it? Not the children, but the trustees and teachers who think the flying of the flag is just a trivial matter.”

Carr’s concerns may well have been overstated, because the following February, the Victoria County District High School Board voted in favour of flying the Red Ensign at local secondary schools. But even here, opinion wasn’t unanimous. “I suggest we defer the matter until we get a Canadian flag,” one board member remarked. “We won’t see that in our lifetime,” sneered another.

Whether local citizens liked it or not, a new flag was coming – though not without resistance. Charles Lamb, the member of parliament for Victoria and Haliburton Counties, stood up in the House of Commons during the early summer of 1964 and made a speech defending the old flag. “I will do all I can in my power to see that this great flag is retained as the national flag of Canada,” Lamb intoned. “The red ensign means something to Canadians that can never be wiped out. It is a symbol, and a nation’s flag is full of meaning.”

Lamb went on to say that he could not accept the argument that the Red Ensign had no meaning for those Canadians who traced their ancestry to places other than the United Kingdom. “These people came here from other lands by choice, knowing that the union jack and the red ensign were part of our history. In fact they were probably influenced by that very fact, because they are symbols of liberty, freedom, and equality.” For Lamb and others, the whole package of Canada’s British inheritance – complete with parliamentary government under a constitutional monarch, that traced its origins back to the Magna Carta – was intertwined with the old flags, and a new national flag represented an attempt to distance contemporary Canada from its foundations.

The “great flag debate” rumbled on into the autumn of 1964, and on Dec. 16 of that year, the House of Commons voted 163 to 78 in favour of the maple leaf flag.

Two months later, the new national flag was raised at a sparsely-attended ceremony held outside of the Lindsay town hall. Unsurprisingly, reactions were mixed. “It is with a great deal of regret and sentiment that we see the Red Ensign hauled down from the flag staff for the last time today,” said Mayor Joseph Holtom wistfully. Up the street, Boy Scout Howie Robinson and Girl Guide Lea Woodward hoisted the new flag in front of Central Senior School as Principal Roy Neville waxed eloquently about the historical significance of the occasion. And Frederick Walton, building superintendent at the Department of Lands and Forests offices on Kent Street West, refused to fly the maple leaf because he felt it had not been approved in a national plebiscite.

“The flag debate seemed to take a very long time and my recollection is that people were becoming extremely tired of hearing about it,” remembers Jim Mackey, who was a teenager at the time. What’s past is prologue, though, for 60 years after that snowy Monday, debates about national symbols and what they mean still flutter in the breeze of contemporary discourse.