Great Canadian Flag Debate a blue background. Pearson preferred this choice, as the blue bars reflected Canada's motto, "From Sea to Sea". On June 15, 1964, Pearson opened the parliamentary flag debate with a resolution: Pearson sought to produce a flag which embodied history and tradition, but he also wanted to excise the Union Jack as a reminder of Canada's heritage and links to the United Kingdom. Hence, the issue was not whether the maple leaf was pre-eminently Canadian, but rather whether the nation should exclude the British-related component from its identity. Diefenbaker led the opposition to the Maple Leaf flag, arguing for the
Great Debates (international relations) Great Debates (international relations) In international relations theory, the Great Debates refer to a series of disagreements between international relations scholars. Ashworth describes how the discipline of international relations has been heavily influenced by historical narratives and that "no single idea has been more influential" than the notion that there was a debate between utopian and realist thinking. The "First Great Debate" also known as the "Realist-Idealist Great Debate" was a dispute between idealists and realists which took place in the 1930s and 1940s and which was fundamentally about how to deal with Nazi Germany. Realist scholars emphasized the anarchical