Chapter 6
The Flag Committee, 1964

On Thursday, 10 September 1964 at 2:00 P.M. the prime minister announced

to the House all party agreement respecting a flag committee of

15 members: 7 Liberals, 5 Conservatives, I New Democrat, 1 Social

Crediter and 1 Créditiste. It was agreed that the committee would report

back to the House in the normal way within six weeks, and that committee

meetings, or at least most of them, would be confidential.1

The prime minister called me to his office and alluding to my experience

and success as chairman of the Standing Committee on External

Affairs that had successfully completed an exhaustive study of the Columbia

River Treaty, he invited me to chair this committee. I told Mr.

Pearson that I thought I would be a disastrous choice to resolve the present

flag impasse, and that any role that I might play should be active

rather than judicial. He then requested me to draw up a list of possible

members from our party to serve on the committee. Pearson knew that I

was terribly disheartened and fearful of our prospects in the special flag

committee. He agreed with my recommendation of Herman Batten

(HumberSt. George), solid as English oak, from Corner Brook, Newfoundland,

as chairman. He accepted five of my suggestions for Liberal

committee members and added two names of his own. It was generally

understood that the prime minister's choice of a flag had failed and that

we should now start afresh.

By the middle of the month the composition of the committee had

been agreed upon. Late in the evening of 15 September James Walker

(York Centre) moved:

That the special committee on a Canadian flag appointed

September 10,1964, be composed of Messrs: Batten, Cadieux

(Terrebonne), Deachman, Dubé, Flemming (Victoria-

Carleton), Mrs. Konantz, Langlois, Lessard (Lake St. John),

Macaluso, Matheson, Monteith, Pugh, Rapp, Ricard and

Scott.

The motion received immediate and unanimous consent.2

At this stage I despaired of political solutions, thinking that nothing

very aesthetic was likely to be produced by a committee. In yielding to

the demand for a committee, the government tacitly acknowledged its inability

to rule in the Commons. Now, in the worst possible circumstances

of acrimony and mistrust, the government members of the committee (in

minority) were expected to produce a result which had theretofore defied

Canadian statesmanship for nearly a century. Deifenbaker believed that

he would be able to use the committee's failure to rout a wobbly government,

so with a gun at our heads we were asked to produce a flag for

Canada and in six weeks!

Generally in a parliamentary committee the chairman and his government

supporters are aided by a minister, and even more important by a

deputy minister equipped with a full complement of experts and with a

developed policy. In this contentious matter the government was relying

upon me, a member of the committee, to fill this role. Independent of my

efforts no really serious research or study had been undertaken so that

outside of the speeches of the prime minister and myself we had no

policy.3

Mr. Pearson had been responsible for starting the allparty committee

system in the Canadian Parliament and he entertained an unbounded

confidence in its contribution to the legislative process. Although he

believed in cooperation, frankness and goodwill, personally as a member

of Parliament he had never had any committee experience and therefore

did not understand its limitations. In this very worst of times, this perennial

optimist sent us out to do our best, and to his everlasting credit, he

left us entirely to our own devices and did not interfere. This is one point

that I must stress because it is noteworthy, and so very characteristic of

the man. It was agreed that our meetings would be conducted in camera.

Not once did the prime minister question me directly or indirectly as to

what transpired in our deliberations and not once did I communicate

with him. I do not believe that he communicated with anyone else on the

committee. He must have been brimful of curiosity for each day he

looked at our anxious faces with a smile that spelled encouragement, affection,

and absolute trust.

Each person on the committee had been handpicked. Collectively they

were no doubt a fine lot. But would we be able to work effectively

together or would we pull in opposite directions? Théogène Ricard, a

French Canadian Conservative, had delivered a particularly opaque

speech on 20 August, which in its way was quite a memorable speech, if

only because it was quite impossible to deduce from it what he thought