Here’s an interesting article for Canada Day: the flags that didn’t make the cut when Canada was choosing its new flag back in 1964:
My two faves are The Searchlight: “The Alberta-based creator of this flag wanted to see a symbol of Canada bathed in “peerpetual light,” so they cast the maple leaf as a prison escapee caught in the glare of a roving searchlight.”
And the Eye of Sauron version.
I think we got it right: our flag is simple and recognizable. Good traits in vexillology.
Those in the linked item are just wrong somehow. Too busy, in most cases.
I like the one surrounded by 20 small flags for various nationalities and ethnicities. For one thing it includes Norwegian and for another it uses the spelling Ugaslovia. Everything else looks like it’s spelled right.
Ouch - those are some serious Crimes Against Vexillology, there.
I laughed at the Beatles flag. And I loved this - how quintessentially Canadian!: “A surprising amount of flag designers admitted that their creation was mediocre, but sighed that they figured it was the only version that would please everyone.”
One design called for a heart 
that had “ten helping friendly hands” sticking out of it. Another had two blue lines on a white background, with two hockey sticks crossed in the centre.Yet another had voyageurs and “Indians” in a canoe, beavers, wheat fields, a steam locomotives, maple leaf, Union Jack, fleur-de-lis, igloo, and I am probably missing a few.
The “searchlight” if it were in red and white instead of the proposed colors and had a better drawn maple leaf is not bad.
The “big brother is watching you” is creepy.
For another, it has some of them listed in noun form, and some in adjective: There’s “Greek” and “China”, rather than “Greek” and “Chinese”, or “Greece” and “China”.
And what would they do if a Luxemborger moved to Canada?
I think my favorite, though, is the watching eye flag. Not because of the eye itself, but because it went so far as to include the pole it’s flying on as an integral part of the flag.
At that rate, they should have gone with the Old Style Pilsner label:
You occasionally see that flag at the Riders games. 
32 rabbits, I’d vote for that.
If they went for 42 rabbits, they’d get all the Douglas Adams fans, too.
Ah, Old Style Pilsner. Born and raised in Lethbridge, Alberta. 
I bet there was a whole of “Oh, Sooory” involved in all this
It’s the best national flag there is. Ticks all the boxes:
I would go with the Quebec motif. Replace the four fleur-on-blue quarters, with red maple leaf-on-white quarters and a red separator. Quebes has one of the most beautiful flags in the world.
I’m not sure a flag that’s substantially similar to the English flag (the flag you describe minus the leaves) would have completely met the desires of the people who wanted a new flag. And if they adopted it now, it would be too similar to the newish flag of Georgia (the country).
Great, after Canada appropriating poutine, beavers and maple leaves as national symbols, the national anthem, and even the country’s name from Quebec, now they’ll appropriate the flag.
This is kind of the opposite of what you asked for, but it’s an interesting design anyway.
While I agree it would be a bad flag for Canada, I actually kinda liked the searchlight. It’s simple yet you can tell what it means.
I also kinda like the “passive aggressive” one, if I interpret it correctly. It’s red a maple leaf in a star-like formation, boredered with white, then placed on blue, with wavy white borders to indicate the sea.
The one you have is good, but that one would have been rather good, too.
