Mr. Speaker, I find myself in an awkward and difficult situation. I asked for my motion to be made votable so it could go to a committee where appropriate form could be put in place and it could be instituted into law. However unanimous consent was denied.
The motion is as innocuous as it could possibly be. It proposes:
That a legislative committee of this House be instructed to prepare and bring in a bill, in accordance with Standing Order 68(4)(b), which would make it a criminal offence to wilfully desecrate the Canadian flag.
In spite of this the only member of the governing party who spoke to the motion, the parliamentary secretary to the justice minister and hon. member for Northumberland, stood and said the flag represents the fundamental values of our country but we should not do anything about it. It seems the government believes there is no place for values in law or in the House. Many of the laws presented by the government reflect that.
It is disappointing that resistance to the idea of allowing values to guide law in this place is leading members of the governing party to deny unanimous consent to my motion. I find myself in an awkward situation. I will ask for unanimous consent once again a little later. I hope the members of the governing party who denied unanimous consent the last time will reconsider.
I would remind the government of a time a month ago when one of its own members asked for unanimous consent to make a private members' bill votable that would have recognized Canadian forces day. It was not made votable by the private members' committee so he asked for it to be made votable in the House.
A member of the opposition denied unanimous consent. He said he would be happy to vote for the motion if the government provided unanimous consent for his own patriotic motion which would have had parliament recommend two minutes of silence on Remembrance Day. Members of the government and another opposition party railed against the hon. opposition member for denying unanimous consent to an innocuous and important motion that would have recognized Canadian forces day. The important motion of the opposition member regarding two minutes of silence on Remembrance Day was also denied.
Today we are debating my motion. The government has spoken against it. It says it is important but it does not want to do anything about it. The only argument I heard was that it would somehow go against the charter of rights and freedoms. That is total and utter nonsense. It is an absolutely nonsensical argument.
I am therefore in an awkward situation because I am tempted to threaten any member who speaks out and denies unanimous consent. I am tempted to make that kind of threat because it seems unfair that government members would show so little respect for this place by denying my motion unanimous consent.
However I will not do that. I will instead ask all members in the House, particularly members opposite who do not support my motion, to at least recognize the importance of respecting democracy and allow the motion to be debated in the House and voted on. That way all members in the House could decide whether or not they wanted to support it.
I ask members to be reasonable and grant unanimous consent for the motion to be made votable.