Thank you, Chair. Thank you to our witnesses.
It says on the website:
There is no official manual of protocol or ceremonial published by the government of Canada. Protocol, by definition, has to be flexible and adapt to the various players on the political or social stage....
Agreed, but it says:
...an official manual would quickly become the “Protocol Bible” and inflexibility would follow.
You will find that with protocol, in essence it's all over the place. For some reason, I guess when I go to events, I find that people have protocol questions. They always refer to the Government of Canada protocol. I always say there really is no one set protocol for a particular department. Legions have theirs. Defence has theirs. Even the cadets have theirs. Then we have this one.
Is that really the case? Do you think it would be inflexible if we had one manual to say, here is a guideline by which to display...one that encompasses dealing with flags or symbols and ceremony?