Given the 50th anniversary of the birth of Canada's beautiful flag was celebrated just a few months ago, I'm guessing many more people know the story of how Prime Minister Lester Pearson’s government chose the new red maple leaf with two red bars on either side as the country's ultimate symbol.
What's less well known is the story of how Ontario created its official flag, which is 50-years-old on Thursday, May 21.
When Pearson replaced the old Red Ensign, former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker led the howls of outrage. The thinking among opponents: Canada fought two world wars under that old Red Ensign. Canadian soldiers bled and died for that flag. So what if it had the Union Jack in the upper left corner? It was still the nation’s flag.
Pearson and the majority of parliamentarians disagreed and the rest is history.
Enter Ontario Premier John P. Robarts.
Robarts realized his province, despite being in Confederation at that point for 98 years, actually didn't have an official flag.
Robarts knew he was popular: he was elected in 1963 with the highest percentage of the total votes cast in post-war Ontario history (48.9 per cent). He also knew a neat opportunity when one presented itself. One day in cabinet, he told his ministers he had decided to take the discarded old Red Ensign, remove the Canadian coat of arms, replace it with the Ontario coat of arms, and presto, Ontario would have an official flag for the first time ever.
Rookie cabinet minister Darcy McKeough got up enough cheek to ask Robarts whether he was concerned about stirring up another tempestuous flag debate. But Robarts' situation wasn't the same as Pearson's. The old Red Ensign with its Union Jack hardly spoke to French aspirations in Quebec. In fact, it reminded Quebecers their ancestors had been conquered by the British on the Plains of Abraham in 1759.
Robarts had no such difficulties, since in 1965, Ontario still had an overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon identity. So the premier told McKeough not to worry, that there would be no flag flap. “And besides Darcy,” the premier added, “it's damn good politics!”
Robarts' political judgment wasn't bad. When it came to a vote in the legislature, every MPP—except for two opposition Liberals (one called it a “flag of revenge”)—voted aye. Citizens were so drained after the national flag flap, they had no energy left for a similar brouhaha provincially.
And that's how Ontario got its flag. No special committee hearings. No cross-country design contest. No nothing actually. Just the intuition of a premier.
In the 50 years since, there has barely been a whiff of controversy around the decision. Until now.
Though I wouldn't describe it yet as a widespread movement, there is a group of citizens who would like to see Ontario's Red Ensign replaced. They say the presence of the Union Jack doesn't speak to the nearly 60 per cent of Ontarians who don't describe their origins as either English or Scottish.
Roberto Martella, the proprietor of Grano Restaurant on Yonge Street, is the driving force behind a new flag. He doesn't have a particular design in mind, other than it “be inclusive of all views, as inclusive as a Province whose reality is vastly different today than it was 50 years ago when the Ontario Flag was cobbled together by Premier Robarts as a paean to perceived 'lost empire.'”
Martella, who was born in Canada, but whose heritage is Italian, may have had his tongue planted firmly in his cheek when he suggested the flag below:
But he's totally serious about making a new flag happen. In fact, he's about to meet with the creative agency Saatchi and Saatchi, whose help he says is being offered pro bono, in hopes of landing on a new design.
In any event, happy 50th birthday to the Robarts Red Ensign. Time will tell how many more birthdays it gets.