The Current - The story behind Canada’s iconic maple leaf flag

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Canada’s flag is celebrating its 60th anniversary — at a time when Canadians are feeling especially patriotic. We dip into the archives to hear how the red-and-white maple leaf design came to be.

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This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, it's Matt here. Thanks for listening to The Current wherever you're getting this podcast. Before we get to today's show, wonder if I might ask a favor of you if you could hit the follow button on whatever app you're using. There is a lot of news that's out there these days. We're trying to help you make sense of it all and give you a bit of a break from some

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The Maple Leaf celebrating its 60th anniversary at a time when Canadians are feeling especially patriotic and that goes beyond election campaigns. The former Prime Minister, Joe Clark, talked earlier in our program about the debate over the creation of the flag and so here from the Currents archives, the story behind the making of our country's flag. My name is Ruth Stanley. My husband was George Stanley, alas, no longer with me. My name is Delah Stanley. My father was George Francis Gilman Stanley, the person who submitted the design of the present flag for Canada. He was first and foremost a historian.

The Dean of Arts and Science at the Royal Military College. I think the first thing we have to understand is that Canada never had had an official flag. We had at various times since Confederation used the Union Jack or the Red Ensign. When I first met George she started talking about flag and I said well we have we have the ensign and he said but it's not suitable. He spent a long time explaining to me why we had to have a flag and in about five minutes

he convinced me and then we spent the next few years trying to convince everybody else. In the election of 1963, Lester B. Pearson promised that if he was elected, within two years, he would make sure that Canada had a flag that represented all Canadians. Let's look back at Sunday night when Mr. Pearson

put his policy to a largely dissenting audience of Legionnaires. In World War II, in January 1944, the Red Ensign came officially on the scene. Then there was a proposal, he had a flag which he thought was a good idea and it later on became known as the Pearson pennant. And he proposed it to Parliament and it went over very negatively.

It was an awful flag he had draped up. And so at that point, he decided to turn the whole issue over to what became known as the flag committee. We sometimes forget. It's all right, Mr. Chairman, this is a veteran's meeting. And as Harry Truman once said, if you can't stand the heat, keep out of the kitchen. People from all across the country submitted designs. There were 1,500 to 2,000 designs. They've submitted ideas ranging from elaborate creations in silk and gold to cardboard cutouts. And my husband had a certain aesthetic sense that he knew exactly what he wanted. I can remember my dad coming home late for supper one night. I clearly remember him explaining to my

mother why he was late for supper. He was sitting in his office and he was looking across the parade square and he could see the RMC flag. So in his proposal, he took the RMC flag and essentially took out the coat of arms for the college and inserted a single red maple leaf. And that's it. That's all there is to it. I believe that the day a flag designed around the maple leaf will symbolize and be a true reflection of the new Canada. I was 13.

I had two younger sisters. We were certainly enthusiastic supporters of the idea. Sadly, a lot of our friends at school and our teachers and even family members did not share that same enthusiasm. I had a teacher that I really, really admired. And every time I came in the room, he'd say, why would your father do that? It's such a rag of a flag.

British organizations that were very unhappy about this flag, didn't hesitate to tell you so. Of course, we're very much aware of the very rancorous debate that then went on in the House of Commons, went on and on and on. Yesterday was the 210th in a weary procession of argument, political maneuver and straight name-calling. Until finally obviously the government introduced closure in order to get the flag passed in Parliament and then of course the first official flying of the flag was on February the 15th 1965. My parents went to that first raising of the flag at Parliament Hill.

We as children could not go and the reason was that someone had sent letters to my father threatening to assassinate him. George did get a letter that was told not to go to raising the new flag because he had killed their flag and he went and they would kill him. So I thought, my children didn't go to that. They never saw that. My son, when he was little, he would tell people when we were downtown, we would look up at the flag on the post office and he'd say, that's my poppy's flag. That's my poppy's flag.

It's a wonderful story, you know, really. He was a marvelous man. Quite remarkable. I was lucky. The design behind Canada's flag was produced by the current Sinesse Calabrese. Almost a decade ago, Ruth Stanley has since died on Flag Day, no less, February 15th, 2017.

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