Canadian pale

In heraldry and vexillology, a Canadian pale is a centre band of a vertical triband flag (a pale in heraldry) that covers half the length of a flag, rather than a third as in most triband designs. This allows more space to display a central image (common charge).

The Canadian Pale was a term invented to describe the distinctive design of a vertical triband field divided into 1:2:1 proportions of the current (and first official) Canadian national flag that was adopted in 1964. The name was suggested by Sir Conrad Swan, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant (a heraldic office in Britain), and first used by Elizabeth II as Queen of Canada proclaiming the new Canadian flag on 28 January 1965.^[1] The design of the flag it referred to was devised by members of a parliamentary committee assigned that task in 1964. John Ross Matheson, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson's parliamentary secretary serving on the committee, produced the design by synthesizing design proposals by George F. G. Stanley and Georg Matthias Bist. This design revised a proposal by Alan Beddoe initially favoured by PM Pearson, dubbed the "Pearson Pennant". The new design widened the bars on the end, replicating the distinctive 1:2:1 proportions of Bist's design, while replicating the unique solely red-white colour scheme of Stanley's proposal.^[2] Both Stanley's and Bist's designs, unlike Beddoe's, featured a single maple leaf.

The classic Canadian pale is a square central panel occupying half of a flag with 1:2 proportions. However, vexillological usage applies it to any central band that is half the width of the flag, even if this renders it non-square. The term Canadian pale is also used for flags which do not originate in Canada. The 3:5 flag of Mississippi and proposed flag of Taiwan and the 7:11 flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are all described as having a Canadian pale.

The Canadian pale is a popular feature of sub-national, civic and personal heraldry from Canada developed after 1965. A few examples can be found in the flag of Yukon, the flag of the city of Edmonton, Alberta, the arms of Athabasca University, and in the arms of numerous individual recipients.^[3]

The term is sometimes used in an even looser sense to refer to any flag with a larger central panel, irrespective of whether or not it covers half the flag. By this looser description, the flag of Norfolk Island (stripes in a ratio of 7:9:7) and the flag of Iowa (ratio legally undefined, but usually the central stripe is less than twice that of the outer stripes) are sometimes considered to have a Canadian pale.

The official blazon of the Flag of Canada of the 1965 Proclamation of the new flag reads: gules on a Canadian pale argent a maple leaf of the first.^[4] The ordinary language description of the flag reads: "a red flag of the proportions two by length and one by width, containing in its centre a white square the width of the flag, bearing a single red maple leaf".^[4] Thus, the original definition of a Canadian pale refers to a square center panel on a flag of 2:1 proportions.

In coats of arms, and heraldry in general, a "Canadian pale" is what might well be referred to in South African heraldry as a "broad pale" as its width is half that of the shield on which it is shown as opposed to the ordinary pale's third to a quarter. They are most commonly used in Canadian heraldry.

• Spanish fess, an analogous horizontal feature