Mr. Speaker, I think we have had a very useful debate today.
The members of the Bloc will not necessarily be supportive of the legislation. It was interesting to listen to the member as she talked about times when singing O Canada in that great province and because of the flag's association with the monarchy Quebecers felt that it was just too late to make that change, so they opted for another flag, the flag of the province of Quebec. I do not want to get into an argument about flags but the flag of Quebec of course is a monarchical symbol, the monarchy of France, so it seems unusual to me.
Similarly the New Democratic Party has its own wish list. It wants to recognize the women's movement. As I listened to the debate by the opposition I reflected and wondered what it must have been like back in 1964 when everybody had some reason not to proceed with the flag debate. They wanted to keep it the way it way it was, and we should be honouring some other group within our society. I am not saying that the member of the New Democratic Party did not have a good argument, but the reality is our flag unites all of us, women, men, everyone under one flag.
The member from the Reform Party thought that it was inappropriate to have just one day for celebration, that we should be celebrating this within our bodies every day. I suppose we could say the same thing about Christmas which of course is a national holiday. If one is a Christian why should there be a Christian holiday called Christmas? It should be something that is inside a person every day and there should not be a specific statutory holiday for that reason. The reality is that is what people have holidays for, to celebrate the things they think are unique in life.
The debate in the House is amazing. Other countries celebrate flag days because they are proud of their countries: Argentina, Finland, Haiti, Liberia, Panama, Paraguay, and the list goes on. Yet here we have this intellectual debate about why we cannot have a statutory holiday. I think that is unfortunate.
My concern was that it was not a votable motion. It would be great to carry on this debate for another two hours. I wonder if I could seek unanimous consent to continue the debate by making it a votable motion.