Great Canadian Flag Debate Canadian Red Ensign the official Canadian flag by Order in Council. Mackenzie King also tried to give Canada a new flag. The recommendation that came back was a Red Ensign, but substituting the coat of arms of Canada with a gold maple leaf. Mackenzie King stopped the venture. In 1958, an extensive poll was taken of the attitudes that adult Canadians held toward the flag. Of those who expressed opinions, over 80% wanted a national flag entirely different from that of any other nation, and 60% wanted their flag to bear the maple leaf. From his office as leader of
The King and Country debate ignored British demands. Martin Ceadel, reviewing the German coverage of the "King and Country Debate", notes that although it was widely covered in Germany, the Nazis did not seem to have made political capital out of it: "indeed, the London correspondent of the "Völkischer Beobachter" was in 1933 stressing rather the militarism of British youth". Shortly before the outbreak of war in 1939, the "Völkischer Beobachter" was still "insisting that the Oxford debate was insignificant". Churchill would, after the war, write on how Japan and Germany too took note of the Joad resolution, which altered their way of thinking about