Chapter 8
Flag Day, 15 February 1965

The approval of the new Canadian flag in the early morning hours of

Tuesday, 15 December, in the Commons was followed by swift approval

on the afternoon of 17 December in the Senate.1 While it may appear

anticlimatic to report, I had busied myself with production long before

Parliament had granted its approval. Time appeared to be of the essence

for there was a large difference between approving a flag by vote and

running it up flagpoles all over the world with all due dignity and

decorum.

I was soon enchanted to discover that even without a college of arms,

even without the expertise of an admiralty establishment, we had all

kinds of talent, we had all the requisite engineering, technical, and administrative

skill, and most important we had motivation. Everyone invited

to help threw himself into the effort with zeal. What used to be said

in World War II was true: Canadians had initiative and enterprise—they

could take on any task and do it.

In the period before the second debate on the flag in the House of

Commons, I occupied myself with research for a stylized maple leaf appropriate

for the flag. Alan Beddoe had acknowledged the difficulties of

producing a good heraldic leaf, so I sought other help. Oftentimes the

leaves painted by the artists of the College of Arms in London approximated

the oak or the vine as closely as the maple. To the English herald

painters, this was a most troublesome device, complicated by the wide

choice of maple trees. There were approximately sixteen distinguishable

varieties. Relying on photographs produced by the Dominion Forest Service,

I selected the hard sugar maple tree as the desired species because

not only did it have a handsome leaf but also this tree had been familiar

to the Indians, the Habitants, and the United Empire Loyalists, for

whom it had produced furniture, food, and fuel. Most important, the

leaf was visually familiar to all Canadians.

To produce a firstclass heraldic leaf to exemplify the sugar maple on a

flat shield or crest, was one thing, but to produce a design appropriate to

the fluttering surface of a flag was quite another. This led to a further

process of search and research—search for a design and research as to its

appearance on a piece of textile in a breeze, and this included the question

of size.

The design was chosen as the best available model of the sugar maple

leaf for display upon a flag surface under moderate and mean conditions

of wind. When fluttering or flapping in a breeze or light gale, it purports

to project with motion picture effect the appearance of a living leaf. It

was selected after I had studied its performance under varying velocities

in the National Research Laboratory Wind Tunnel.

There are an interesting number of major and minor points, or waves,

on the real sugar maple leaf. It is possible to count some twentythree in

all. The stylized design finally chosen has eleven points which visually

multiply as wind speed increases.

Of many leaf models that were considered, the one finally selected,

with minor modifications to its stem, was a design which had been

developed with painstaking care by Jacques SaintCyr of the Canadian

Government Exhibition Commission. SaintCyr, who had natural talent

and sensitivity, had benefited from expert instruction in graphic art and

design in schools in Montreal, New York, and London. It was exciting to

be able to find all the requisite technical expertise in Canada.

David Cobb in his magazine article, "Our Great Flag Mystery"2

recalls an occasion when Patrick Reid, then director of the Canadian

Government Exhibitions Commission, and I descended upon the production

staff of the commission to produce a prototype of the new flag for

the prime minister. Jacques SaintCyr, our designer, worked on the

layout until I was entirely satisfied. Ivan Des Rosiers and John Williams

cut the film, prepared the silk screen and, under the critical eye of the

head of production, Jack Rachlis, screened several pieces of cloth.

The first screening was defective, lacking sufficient ink. I therefore set

aside the result for the archives of Queen's University. When at last a

perfect print was obtained, Ken Donovan, the assistant purchasing chief

for the Department of Trade and Commerce, telephoned his daughter

Joan O'Malley to act as our seamstress. Joan, a twentyyearold bride,

dropped her housework to apply her dressmaking skills to the production

of Canada's first flag. She had never had occasion to examine a flag and

knew nothing about toggles and grommets and rope holes. Much of her

work was by hand, but it was perfect—a labor of love. Later that night,

6 November 1964, a very professionallooking flag was delivered to the

prime minister's residence by Kenneth Donovan. Pearson was delighted.

A significant contribution was made by Mrs. Yvonne Diceman, a

British war bride of extraordinary ability and talent. She and her husband

had served operationally in the Royal Canadian Air Force during

World War II; she had instructed air crew and operated wireless com-