![Canada's Flag A Search For A Country](../images/titlebar2.gif) 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
enterprisethey
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 researchsearch 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 perfecta 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-
![Canada's Flag A Search For A Country](../images/titlebar2.gif)
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