Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be able to speak today in defence of our national symbol. I am disturbed to think that we cannot find it within ourselves to make laws giving us authority to protect our national symbol.
We have many different symbols. We promote them. We have religious symbols that we understand. We know what they mean. There is an identity that comes with those religious symbols. They have a meaning behind them. There are very important messages contained within those symbols.
Not only do we have symbols of religion, we also have symbols of reward and achievement. Those symbols, those badges and medals, are worn proudly by our military men and women. There are even certain rules and conditions under which they may wear those medals and under which others may not. We recognize their importance. They are not important because they are valuable, not in their right by themselves. They are important because of the achievement or merit that earned an individual that medal.
There are other symbols that are very precious to some of us. Every day I wear on the finger of my left hand a symbol of my commitment to my wife in marriage. It is an important symbol to me. My wife would not like it if I took it off, desecrated it, cut it in half, threw it away and those kinds of things. She would be offended by that. She would want to defend that symbol in some way. Yet we simply allow people to do what they want with our national symbol. We allow them to stomp it in the dirt, rub it in the ground, burn it, wrap their garbage in it, do whatever they want with it. That is not an honourable way to treat our symbol.
Members opposite will recall an incident that happened in the House a few weeks ago. A member of ours picked up the golden symbol sitting on that table. What a fuss that caused. What a fuss there was just because he touched that sacred symbol of the Mace and lifted it over his head in protest of the lack of democracy in this place. We defended that symbol by disciplining that member. He was put outside the bar. He was made to stand at the bar and apologize to the House for his inconsideration in regard to that symbol.
Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that the symbol on your right, the red and white one, is much more important and much more valuable than this symbol over here. That symbol represents the whole nation. It represents our national sovereignty. Only nations should be able to fly a flag which indicates that they stand as independent nations on their own, making their own decisions, making their own laws and providing for their own citizens. The flag is a symbol of that. It is a symbol of our freedom, that which we are able to enjoy as citizens in this country.
People come to Canada and live under the symbol of the maple leaf and know that they are in a country that stands for freedom. Freedom is not bought cheaply. It comes with a high price. I do not believe that we need to let the symbol of our freedom be tromped upon cheaply. There needs to be a price. We need to protect the symbol of our sovereignty and our freedom. It is a symbol of our national identity. We are proud of who we are. We are proud of this nation. We are proud that we are different from other nations in the world. We pride ourselves on being different from the United States. That is our identity.
That maple leaf is a symbol, perhaps, of beauty. I remember my first trip to the Gatineau hills last fall. As I drove on the west side of the hills and the sun was shining at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, those maple trees lit up and were aglow in a fluorescent red that was as beautiful as the red on our flag. The flag reminds us of the beauty of our land, the fruitfulness of the sweet syrup that comes from the maple tree, the sweetness of our land. It is a symbol of that. It goes beyond the maple tree and beyond the maple syrup and speaks of the sweetness of the land that we need to protect, and we need to protect that symbol as well.
National pride: Do we not have any national pride? We are so upset when someone else suggests that we do something, when someone else suggests that we guard our borders in a certain way or suggests that we might pass certain laws. We are so wounded in our pride to think they are pushing us in some way, yet we do not have the spine to stand up when someone desecrates our national symbol and say that it is against the law and therefore something will be done about it.
I cannot understand why we cannot have enough pride to protect our national symbol. I would have been proud to vote for the bill should it have been votable. It is a shame for us to be denied the opportunity to vote for this great symbol of our land and to see it revered with the respect with which it should be.