Stand Up and Wave

February 15th is the day that Canada celebrates the first time that our beautiful red and white flag was raised.  It happens every year, apparently.  Not ones to over-celebrate anything, we Canadians don’t have any specific traditions for this non-stat-holiday.  There are some dorky suggestions on the Canadian Government website for kids (one of the suggestions is colouring a printout of the flag, so…that’s like a one crayon activity…) and even some suggestions for the over 13 crowd (word search, crossword puzzle, a quiz), but there isn’t much of a brouhaha done to actually mark the day. 

I doubt that Jean Chretien thought that this was how National Flag Day would end up when he added it into our Canadian calendar in 1996.  That was the year that he held the first Flag Day ceremony and it was held in Hull, Quebec.  On his way back to the car after the ceremony, he was confronted by a protester who got all up in his face about a completely different topic, and since it had only been 3 months since 24 Sussex Drive had been broken into at night by that guy with a hunting knife who wanted to kill him, Jean was still on edge about being physically attacked.  Fair enough!  M. Chretien grabbed the protester by the neck and forced him to the ground (and broke one of his teeth) before the RCMP stepped in to take over the situation.  That doesn’t happen EVERY Flag Day, of course, but certainly provided a rambunctious start!

While the tradition of Flag Day may still be a young 29 years and not quite sure what to make of itself, our striking red and white flag will officially be 60 years old as of February 15, 2025!  From 1497, when explorer John Cabot showed up for the first time in Newfoundland, we had been riding on the coat tails of another country’s flag—even mashing several countries’ emblems onto one flag so as not to be rude (steadfastly ignoring the people who were already here when the rest of us arrived!)—therefore, it was well and truly time for our own identity to emerge.   

Prime Minister Lester Pearson put his foot down in 1964, saying that this country needed a flag that was distinctive and immediately identifiable as Canadian.  He had an idea of what the flag should look like and submitted it to be accepted by Parliament as Canada’s new flag.  It was nicknamed Pearson’s Pendant and featured a stem of 3 red maple leaves in the middle and a band of blue on both ends, to signify the whole sea-to-sea thing.  The House thought it was lame and voted it down. 

The issue of finding a design for a new Canadian flag turned into a Big Deal and parliamentary debate revolved around it from June 15^th, 1964, straight through the summer until September 10^th, when Pearson decided the issue could only be solved by a committee of 15 Members of Parliament.  The 15 were picked, all political parties were represented, and Parliament got on with other business while decisions were being made by the committee.  Oh, and they were given 6 weeks to complete their task!       

At this point, the public was asked for submissions.  Always a big mistake.  There ended up being at least 3,600 submissions for the committee to sift through.  Of that number: 2,136 submissions featured maple leaves in some way, 408 contained the Union Jack, 389 pictured a beaver, and 359 showed the Fleurs-de-lys.  Some submissions showed all of these elements at once!     

George Stanley, an historian, author, university hockey player, head of the History Department and the first Dean of Arts at Kingston’s Royal Military College of Canada at this point, and eventually Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick, must have also been a doodler because he proposed the basic design of our current Canadian flag in a memo he sent to the Flag Committee outlining what they should be looking for in a good flag design.  George had a solid reputation in heraldry and was well-versed in the history of Canadian emblems, so his advice to the Flag Committee was taken seriously.  And, he had included his doodle which demonstrated what his 4-page memo explained. 

We don’t know if the Committee read all of George Stanley’s memo, but they certainly fancied his doodle which was immediately added to the wall of ‘Possibles’ and ended up being on a shortlist of 3 options to be voted on.  This design won the committee’s vote unanimously and then was approved by Parliament in a 163 to 78 vote on December 15^th, 1964.  From there the design went on Queen Elizabeth who, quite frankly, was probably glad to see that we were finally trying to get on by ourselves. 

On February 15^th, 1965, our truly Canadian flag was run up the flagpole on Parliament Hill for the first time and with great ceremony!            

Our flag is a simple little design—tidy, contained, elegant, and at the same time bold.  The length is twice the width (not all flags are!), with the red fields on either end being half the width of the centre field of white, which hosts the single red maple leaf.  In the original design, that maple leaf had 13 points, but when it was turned over to graphic designer Jacques Saint-Cyr, he finessed it into 11 points.  It was agreed that 11 looked better when the flag was flapping in the wind. 

Even though we don’t seem to raise much of a fuss about celebrating our flag’s birthday, I’m sure that we all feel a surge of pride whenever we see it flown.  As Jean Chretien wrote in his declaration of National Flag Day in 1996, “Although simple in design, Canada’s flag well reflects the common values we hold so dear: freedom, peace, respect, justice and tolerance.  Canada’s flag is a symbol that unites Canadians and expresses throughout the world and always our pride in being Canadian.”  Following up with “Let us be proud of our flag!  Let us recognize how privileged we are to live in Canada, this magnificent country that encompasses our history, our hopes, our future.”  

Can’t say it any better than that!