Great Canadian Flag Debate

The Great Canadian Flag Debate (or Great Flag Debate) was a national debate that took place in 1963 and 1964 when a new design for the national flag of Canada was chosen.

Although the flag debate had been going on for a long time prior, it officially began on June 15, 1964, when Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson proposed his plans for a new flag in the House of Commons. The debate lasted more than six months, bitterly dividing the people in the process. The debate over the proposed new Canadian flag was ended by closure on December 15, 1964. It resulted in the adoption of the "Maple Leaf flag" as the Canadian national flag.

The flag was inaugurated on February 15, 1965, and since 1996, February 15 has been commemorated as National Flag of Canada Day.

For much of its post-Confederation history, Canada used both the Royal Union Flag (Union Jack) as its national flag, and the Canadian Red Ensign as a popularly recognized and distinctive Canadian flag.

The first Canadian Red Ensigns were used in Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald's time. The Governor General at the time of Macdonald's death, Lord Stanley, wrote to London in 1891:

... the Dominion Government has encouraged by precept and example the use on all public buildings throughout the provinces of the Red Ensign with the Canadian badge on the fly... [which] has come to be considered as the recognized flag of the Dominion, both ashore and afloat.

Under pressure from pro-imperial public opinion, Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier raised the Union Flag over Parliament, where it remained until the re-emergence of the Red Ensign in the 1920s. In 1945, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, having flown the Union Jack over Parliament throughout the war, made the Canadian Red Ensign the official Canadian flag by Order in Council. Mackenzie King also tried to give Canada a new flag. The recommendation that came back was a Red Ensign, but substituting the coat of arms of Canada with a gold maple leaf. Mackenzie King stopped the venture.

...
Wikipedia