Canada’s largest province had a new flag on this date in 1965. The move came after the divisive flag debate had paralyzed federal politics for months and months. John Diefenbaker, of course, had unsuccessfully fought for the preservation of the Red Ensign, with its ever-present Union Jack, as Canada’s flag. Lester Pearson, however, won in the end with his new Canadian flag officially first flow in February of 1965.
In Ontario, Premier John Robarts, sensing an opportunity, unveiled a new provincial flag that looked exactly like the Red Ensign but with the Ontario coat-of-arms added where Canada’s coat-of-arms had been.
Award-winning Ontario broadcast journalist, Stever Paikin, a biographer of Robarts, described the history behind this important provincial symbol in an article published in 2015. You can read it at this link: https://www.tvo.org/article/steve-paikin-is-it-time-for-a-new-flag-for-ontario
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.