History of the Canadian Flag from Colonial to the Present

Before Independence

The very first flag on Canadian territory was the white English flag with the cross of St. George, raised by J. Cabot.

42 years later, J. Cartier announced the annexation of the land he had discovered to France and raised the French flag here.

After the transfer of Canadian territory to Great Britain in accordance with the Treaty of Paris, the Union Jack was raised here, and it flew over Canada until 1965.

There were also other flags in what is now Canada during this period. In particular, the flag of the Hudson’s Bay Company from 1845 was the British “red ensign” with the first letters of the English company name “HBC” in white in the free part.

National liberation movements also had their own flags. Thus, when running for election to the Assembly of Lower Canada (now Quebec), the Patriot Party chose as its flag a cloth of green, white and red vertical stripes, reminiscent of the flag of the French Revolution.

In 1837, anti-colonial demonstrations took place under such flags, but already consisting of horizontal stripes depicting a maple leaf, beaver and pike, as well as under white flags depicting an eagle with a maple branch. During the anti-British uprisings of 1837-1838 in Upper Canada (now Ontario), the rebel flag was a blue and white cloth with two white stars symbolizing the two parts of Canada, and the inscription “Freedom”.

The flag of the Lower Canada rebels was a white cloth with a maple branch and fish framed by a wreath of pine branches and cones.

Flag of Canada

The Canadian flag itself appeared only a year after the formation of the Dominion. In May 1868, an official seal was established for it, which combined the coats of arms of the four provinces that made up Canada, and the seal’s design began to be depicted on the colonial “blue flag”.

The flag was first flown on Canadian ships in December 1868. It was established as the official flag of the Dominion on July 16, 1870, and was first flown on land in Victoria on July 1, 1871, during a military parade.
After the annexation of Manitoba (1870), flags began to feature a badge with five coats of arms, after the annexation of British Columbia (1871) and Prince Edward Island (1873) – with seven coats of arms, and after the establishment in 1907 of the coats of arms of the new provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta, created in 1905, with nine coats of arms.
From about May 1871, British “red ensigns” with various versions of the image of its badge began to be used in Canada. One such flag was raised in 1875 over the Parliament Building. But the Dominion government only officially allowed the use of the “red flag” with the Canadian badge on June 30, 1890.
Since 1892, the badge’s heraldic shield has been depicted topped with a crown and framed by a wreath of maple leaves.
Sometimes the coat of arms was depicted in a white circle, and underneath it was a golden image of a beaver, as a symbol of Canada.

On the “blue flag”, the badge, despite the increase in the number of provinces, did not change – it remained with four fields (the same “blue flag” was also the jack of Canadian military ships until 1965).
On February 2, 1892, the British Admiralty officially authorized the use of the “red flag” with the image of a five-part badge on all Canadian ships.
In 1921, King George V granted Canada a new national coat of arms, which began to be depicted on its “red” and “blue” flags. And since 1922, a new version of the coat of arms began to be depicted on the “red” and “blue” flags of Canada.

In 1924, the Red Ensign was authorized to be used as the official symbol of Canadian federal government abroad. However, by this time, the Red Ensign, which had become more popular with the Canadian population than the Blue Ensign, had already begun to be used by the government domestically, displacing the Blue Ensign. It was the Red Ensign that was used by Canadian Army units during the fighting in Europe in 1943, and on September 5, 1945, it was officially established as the flag of Canada. On that day, the Canadian government ordered the Red Ensign to be flown on government buildings, both inside and outside the country, “until the national flag is established.”

In this form, the flag existed practically unchanged (since 1957, the maple leaves on the coat of arms became red) until 1965.

Canadian flag projects

But during this period, almost every year there was a debate in the Canadian parliament about the new flag. The stumbling block was the question of whether to preserve the symbols of former dependence on Great Britain. If the majority of English Canadians then saw in such symbols a part of the national heritage and even a counterweight to the ideological influence of the USA, then for French Canadians it was, as a rule, the personification of colonialism and national inequality. The struggle around this issue was so intense that the first special parliamentary committee, appointed in 1925 to develop a flag project, never completed the work, and the second, formed in 1946, managed to offer only an extremely controversial compromise – to add a maple leaf to the “red flag”, but this proposal did not receive the approval of the government.

Finally, in 1963, amid rising nationalism and separatist sentiment in Quebec, then-Prime Minister Lester Pearson publicly committed to resolving the flag issue within two years.
The Liberal Party he led proposed making the flag of Canada a white cloth with blue stripes on the sides and three maple leaves in the middle. The New Democratic Party proposed the same, but with one leaf. The Conservative Party insisted on keeping the old flag.
To finally resolve the issue of the national flag, in 1964 Prime Minister Pearson organized a “flag committee” consisting of 15 members of parliament representing five different political parties in the House of Commons. The task of this committee was one – to find a flag design that would represent Canada and be understood by all citizens of the country. The committee not only organized the work of flag experts, but also asked all Canadians to send in their proposals. Thousands of people responded. The committee office was filled with mail bags. The most successful works, from the committee’s point of view, were hung on the walls. Most of the drawings depicted a maple leaf. Some drawings contained up to 12 leaves – the number of provinces and territories. Moreover, the leaves were both red and other colors. In addition, there were projects with images of a beaver, a mounted policeman, various religious symbols, a bison, a rabbit, an eagle, a Canada goose and even a hockey stick. Many of the drawings were accompanied by detailed descriptions of the meanings of the symbols, others – by poems, songs and entire essays written in support of their ideas (currently, all of these projects, from a simple pencil sketch to a professionally executed painting, are stored in the National Archives of Canada as an important part of its historical and cultural heritage).

After several weeks of evaluating the designs and hearing expert opinions, a parliamentary committee (jury) selected one of 4,200 designs by May 1964, proposed by military historian George Stanley, who took as his model the flag of the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario – a red cloth with a white stripe in the middle, but replaced the coat of arms of Canada depicted on the stripe with a maple leaf. However, on May 14, Prime Minister Pearson, speaking to the press, announced that in his opinion the flag of Canada should have an image of three red maple leaves on a white field with two blue stripes at the edges. This version of the flag was approved by the cabinet on May 21, 1964.

On September 9, 1964, a mass demonstration took place in Quebec, the participants of which demanded independence for the province and its separation from Canada. This forced the Prime Minister to repeat his promise made in 1963 – to create a flag around which Canadians would unite. And in October 1964, the government presented three flag designs to Parliament: red with the Union Jack and a lily, white with three maple leaves and blue stripes, and a design by J. Stanley. Parliamentary debates on the design lasted 33 days and became, according to Canadian historians, “the longest and most hostile.” The Prime Minister urged parliamentarians to choose a flag that could not be confused with any flag of another country – a flag with three leaves. The leader of the opposition advocated a design based on the British “red flag”, which would symbolize Canada’s historical connection with Great Britain. Finally, at 2.13 am on December 15, 1964, the debate ended and the House of Commons voted 168 to 78 to approve the flag designed by J. Stanley. On December 17, the Senate made the same decision.
On December 18, 1964, the Canadian Parliament granted official status to the Union Jack. It is a symbol of Canada’s membership in the British Commonwealth and is flown during Commonwealth and royal holidays.

Modern flag of Canada

On January 28, 1965, the Flag Act was adopted and approved by the British Queen, and in February 1965, Queen Elizabeth II personally came to Canada to conduct the ceremony of raising the new flag, which took place on February 15. The new national flag of Canada was raised over the Peace Tower, crowning the building of the federal parliament – the tallest building in the capital at that time (currently this flag is kept in the office of the Prime Minister of the country).
The flag (proportions 1: 2) is simultaneously national, state and commercial (merchant fleet) and consists of three vertical stripes (proportions 3: 6: 3): red, white and red, in the center of the white stripe is a red maple leaf. The red and white colours of the flag have been considered national in Canada since the 19th century, and were officially approved on November 21, 1921 by King George V. The ribbon of the British medal established for Canada in 1899 was red-white-red; the flag and uniform of the Royal Military College in Kingston, which has been in existence since 1876 and trains officers for the Canadian army, are red and white.
The red colour symbolises the self-sacrifice of Canadians, and the white colour symbolises the vast expanses of the country, which are covered with snow for a significant part of the time, which is why Canadians sometimes call their country “our snow lady”.
It is also believed that the white square symbolises Canada, and the red stripes symbolise the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which wash it in the east and west, and at the same time symbolise the national motto “a mari usque ad mare” (“from sea to sea”).
The maple leaf has also been used since the 19th century. is a Canadian national symbol and has been depicted on the coat of arms of Canada and the coats of arms of Ontario and Quebec for over 120 years. According to one legend, the maple leaf became a symbol of Canada under the following circumstances. In 1860, the Prince of Wales visited Canada for the first time. A meeting was planned in Toronto, and the city’s population was preparing to meet the prince with their national symbols. Thus, English emigrants brought roses, and Scottish emigrants brought thistle branches (the symbol of Scotland). However, there was no symbol for the children of emigrants born in Canada, since the only Canadian symbol was the beaver. But someone remembered that back in the late 1830s, the Baptist Society of St. John in Quebec adopted the maple leaf as its symbol. It was decided to bring it to the Canadians for the meeting with the Prince of Wales…

Several dozen species of maple grow in Canada, but for his flag project, J. Stanley chose the most recognizable shape for all Canadians – the sugar maple leaf. However, the leaf of this maple has 23 teeth, and there are only 11 on the flag leaf. This was done because the designer Jacques Saint-Cyr blew a model of the flag in a wind tunnel at the National Research Laboratory in Ottawa to see how the flag would look when fluttering in the wind, and the 23-teeth shape of the leaf was difficult to recognize in a strong wind on the flag, and the optimal shape was the one with 11 teeth. The shade of red on the leaf on the flag is bright scarlet, which distinguishes it from the lighter color of the British Union Jack and the darker color of the US flag. This shade of red was designed by Günter Wyszecki, and the proportions of the flag were designed by George Bist.