Chapter 11
Conclusion

The DiefenbakerPearson era in Parliament produced more stories,

books, film features than any other period in Canadian history 1 and its

liveliest issue was the flag debate. Several important writers rushed to

print before they had time to reflect so that their onthescene comments

reveal different biases, hunches, and points of view. They are interesting

to compare.

One writer of note was Patrick Nicholson, an Englishman born in

London and educated at Winchester and Oxford. After six years in the

Royal Air Force he had come to Canada and joined Ottawa's parliamentary

press gallery in 1947. He regarded the entire flag affair as a shallow

emotional issue of low priority which was a waste of Parliament's time.

In his opinion Pearson's proposal to create a distinctive Canadian flag

flowed from poor political judgment or accepting silly advice.2 Notwithstanding

his caustic comment and almost consistent support of

Diefenbaker, Nicholson carried no personal grudges and always treated

me with kindness and affability.

Peter C. Newman, another commentator, wrote from quite a different

viewpoint. Newman, who was born in Vienna, came to Canada in 1940

and studied at Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto.3 He

felt comfortable with Canada's establishment even though he knew what

it was like to be a new Canadian. But he was a new Canadian free from

the torment of Europe. In his discerning bestseller, The Distemper of

Our Times, he addressed himself to the flag question on thirteen occasions.

He wrote:

The great flag debate. . . involved very much more than

legislative approval of a piece of bunting with a maple leaf

design. It represented a symbolic passing of the attitudes of a

generation, a triumph of the Canadian present over the Canadian

past.4

What for the older Nicholson was a waste of time was for the younger

Newman a necessary part of Canada's evolution. He concluded:

"Whatever history's final assessment of Lester Pearson might be, the

flag would be one of his most imaginative accomplishments."5

One friend whose wisdom I much admired was the onetime dean of

Canadian journalists, the late Blair Fraser. Fraser came from Cape

Breton, was educated in Sydney, Nova Scotia, and at Acadia University,6

and had enough knowledge of Canada and enough Scots background to

understand the complexities of the question. He admired political

courage. His account of the flag concludes with this cryptic sentence:

"An issue which had terrified Canadian Governments for forty years,

and had been a burr under Canada's saddle blanket for a century, had at

last been disposed of forever."7

A more penetrating contemporary observation was to be found in an

article on Prime Minister Pearson entitled "Bruce Hutchison Looks at a

LittleUnderstood Man."8 For my part, I saw Pearson as uncomplicated,

with an engaging quality of innocence. Hutchison stood in awe of his

depth when he wrote:

. . . to judge him we must look down a very deep well.

. . . Most Canadians will agree that Pearson's reach was bold

by any reckoning. In certain areas his grasp too, was intuitive

and sure. . . . As a public and private man he does not

measure wealth in money. For more important to him is the nation's

intangible treasure which goes by the name of racial

unity and it is there that history will find his largest

achievement.

Coached by his expert advisors the visible Pearson has made

some ghastly mistakes. The invisible Pearson, acting alone on

his own intuition, was usually right and in the adventure of the

maple leaf flag, for instance, showed a sudden gambler's courage

that amazed his closest colleagues. He did not consult

them. He consulted his secret oracle.

His critics say that he wobbled and waffled over the problem

of Quebec. Of course he did, quite deliberately. Those who are

puzzled by his tactics have failed to perceive his strategyto

buy time while the nation slowly recognized its danger and

came to grips with the eternal French fact. He might seem to

stagger on the march but he never lost sight of the goal which

other men must reach when he has gone.

That was it. Here Mr. Hutchison gets to the very essence of the

matter—"the eternal French fact," the single great issue in Canadian

politics, the hard slow struggle for national unity. It is with this supreme

issue that my prologue on Canada's flag commences. Without apology it