I will come back to you, Mr. Lévesque. Earlier, you said that when a medal is awarded, no instructions are given about what can be done with it after that. You used that maxim that ignorance of the law is no excuse.
So the Cultural Property Export and Import Act applies to members of the Canadian Forces who receive medals from Canada and ignorance of the law is no excuse for them. However, if we also award medals to people from another country who are not subject to our laws, we have a double standard. We can't give someone from another country the same medal we give a Canadian and apply the law to the recipient who is a Canadian citizen but not to the one who lives somewhere else.
Why, in this case, would we have a law that prohibits Canadian recipients from selling their decorations without first approaching Canadian institutions? And we don't tell them they aren't entitled to sell them, we don't tell them anything, but ignorance of the law is no excuse for them. However, we can fine them if they sell and export their decorations. The others can do what they want with them, for example sell them on eBay or anywhere.
Why is there a double standard?