It was not until 1965 that the Government of New Brunswick resolved to introduce an unprecedented "distinctive provincial flag". This was done shortly after the Canadian Red Ensign, which had been used unofficially as the national flag, was replaced on February 15, 1965, by a new design featuring a maple leaf. There were still parts of Canada where imperialist nostalgia was strong, and ruing the demise of the Red Ensign, they sought to have it modified as a provincial flag. This is what occurred in Ontario (1965) and Manitoba (1966). In New Brunswick, the parliamentary opposition party – the Progressive Conservatives at that time – had plans to table a motion approving the Red Ensign as the new provincial flag. This would have had particularly detrimental ramifications given the province's history of French and British settlement. Although the British had forcibly removed the Acadians from present-day New Brunswick during the mid-18th century, some of them returned after the deportations ended. Consequently, the province was still strongly divided by language, ethnicity, and religion, with English-speaking descendants of British colonists and Loyalists forming the majority and French-speaking Acadians comprising a sizeable minority of approximately 35%.