Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We come up against this issue around apartment buildings all the time, particularly at election time, when we ask them to put signs up on their apartment balconies and they say they're not allowed to, so I understand the issue here. However, as I read this, I doubt that the flag protocol allows people, if they follow the protocol properly, to hang a flag over their balcony and be in compliance with it.
We're against criminalization, but you're also asking us to vote on an amendment, and no one here can actually say whether this will encourage, help, or solve the problem you initially brought forward, which is that people in apartments and condos who want to hang a flag on their balcony should be able to do so. When I read the flag protocol, to me it's a little up in the air. I think we need to understand what the flag protocol means.
Can you actually tape a flag up? It says here,
Nothing should be pinned to or sewn on the National Flag of Canada.
As well, it says,
The National Flag of Canada should always be flown on its own mast - flag protocol dictating that it is improper to fly two or more flags on the same mast
Then there are a variety of other prescriptions.
In other words, in our attempts to simplify and correct a problem, the problem got more complicated. Do we understand this issue? Do we know what it means? It strikes me that we'd have to actually understand and know what this means before we can vote on it.