Searching for Unity

With stirring words about national unity, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson last May proudly proposed a new national flag for Canada--three red maple leaves on a white ground bracketed in blue. He wanted it to replace the old Red Ensign, envisioned it as a bright symbol of Canada's independent nationhood. Last week Pearson finally had to admit defeat. He gave up trying to push his flag through a stalemated Parliament and dumped the whole thing in the lap of a 15-man interparty committee, which now has six weeks to find a brand-new design.

Bikini or Blanket? Far from producing unity, Pearson's flag produced a parliamentary spectacle that Canadians came to look upon with disgust. No sooner had Pearson's minority Liberal government proposed the flag than it was under violent attack--chiefly by the opposition Conservative Party headed by ex-Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, whose strategy apparently is to make it impossible for Pearson to govern. Diefenbaker set out to filibuster the flag to death. The Conservatives tore into the new flag as an insult to the "mother country," tagged it "Pearson's pennant," compared it to "the posterior of a bikini," a blanket for a race horse, a trademark for soap flakes.

By exercising forceful leadership, Pearson might have run the political risk of ramming his flag through with the help of the three small parties that generally support his minority government. Instead the debate raged on until Parliament was in chaos. Over a total 22 days of nonstop jabber, no fewer than 175 speeches were made, 117 of them by filibustering Conservatives. It got so bad that New Democrat Stanley Knowles rose in disgust. "We are making Parliament a side show," he said. And on that Mike Pearson finally had to agree.

English v. French. Pearson may eventually get some sort of maple-leaf emblem to cover his country. But it will take much more than a new flag to bring Canadians together. After 17 months in office, Pearson is beset on all sides--not only by Diefenbaker's Conservatives but also by angry squabbles over federal v. provincial powers, and most particularly by a deeply divided, mutually antagonistic population.

Two-thirds of Canada's 19 million citizens speak English; one-third are fiercely French -- in language, culture, temperament. And now some secessionist sentiment is springing up in the province of Quebec, gathering support among French Canadians who have long complained bitterly of second-class citizenship. Pearson has made several concessions giving Quebec more provincial autonomy and French Canadians a stronger voice in the federal government. Many French Canadians consider this too little, too late.

A Montreal separatist organization operates more or less openly, with an estimated membership of 7,000. Small, shadowy bands of fanatics have bombed army installations, destroyed mailboxes and raided armories, stealing rifles, sub machine guns, antitank bazookas and any other weapons they could cart away. Fortnight ago, five terrorists looted a firearms store in Montreal and killed an employee before police swooped down to capture them.

The separatists and their lunatic fringe are hardly likely to wrench Quebec away from the rest of Canada. But their capacity for trouble sends shivers up and down Pearson's spine. Next month, Britain's Queen Elizabeth is to make an eight-day state visit to Canada, and no one can be sure what kind of reception she will get in Quebec. "Some of my people," says Separatist Marcel Chaput, "are ready to let her know, and know brutally, that she is no longer welcome in Quebec." Provincial leaders scoff at all talk of trouble. But it would not be smart to take chances. A newly built riot-control truck with a powerful water gun will be standing by. Says one ministerial aide: "The security arrangements will be the most thorough ever for a peacetime visitor."

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