Before 1965, Canada’s main national symbol on land was the Canadian Red Ensign , a red British-style flag with the Union Jack in the upper-left corner and a shield of Canada’s coat of arms on the fly side.

Quick Scoop

  • The Canadian Red Ensign was a red flag with:
    • The Union Jack (British flag) in the top-left corner.
* A shield bearing the Canadian coat of arms on the right (fly) side.
  • It was used widely (especially from the late 1800s onward) as Canada’s unofficial national flag.
  • Officially, the Union Jack itself was still recognized as Canada’s national flag until the maple leaf flag was adopted in 1965.

A tiny story snapshot

If you were standing in front of Parliament in Ottawa in early 1965, just before the maple leaf flag went up, you would have seen the Red Ensign flying: a very British-looking red banner with the Union Jack in the corner and Canada’s arms on the right. A few weeks later, that flag was lowered and replaced by the now-familiar red-and-white maple leaf design, marking a symbolic shift from a colonial-style emblem to a distinctly Canadian one.

In short: before 1965, Canada flew the Canadian Red Ensign (and officially the Union Jack), not the modern maple leaf flag.

TL;DR:
Canada’s flag before 1965 was the Canadian Red Ensign: a red flag with the Union Jack in the top-left and Canada’s coat of arms on the right, used alongside the Union Jack as the national flag.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.