Mr. Speaker, over the past couple of weeks I have looked into the ramifications of this bill quite a bit and sought out many opinions about how people feel about this. We are getting into an interesting discussion about pride in the flag. We talk about what happened in Vancouver at the Olympics. The hon. member for Vancouver Quadra knows this quite well, as was pointed out earlier. Many celebrate Canada Day as the sun breaks over the Canadian flag on Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador and it is certainly a moment that stops one's heart, a true Canadian heart.
I would like to make a few points that have been brought up in debate so far. These are technical matters because as I look into this bill, it is the technicalities of it that really bring it down even though it has the best of intentions.
I want to thank my hon. colleague because he is onto something with regard to the situation that happened in his riding and it certainly deserves the attention of the House.
In the beginning I may not have thought that, but as time goes on, I actually believe it does because these are people who are told they cannot do something to express pride and therefore they are diminished.
That being said, in the House we have several measures by which we can express the opinion of those who wish to be proud of their flag, and those who want to do it and not be hindered to do so. What the member is looking at is more of a private member's motion than a private member's bill because the bill takes the idea of ensuring someone has the right to fly the flag and unnecessarily penalizing people in many respects. I do not believe that was the intention of the bill to begin with.
The member talks about sending the bill to committee for the sake of making major amendments and then bringing it back, but the problem with that is that once it gets to the heritage committee, if the amendments that we make go against the principle and scope of the bill, then the Speaker would have to rule it out.
The way to get around that is to send the bill to committee before second reading, before anyone in the House says yes to it because there are many things we cannot change.
I know many people will tell me not to worry. If the committee says it wants a change, it will change. That is not how it works. If the changes go beyond the principle and scope of the bill, the Speaker has the responsibility to say we cannot do that, but the Speaker had already said yes to it.
I bring that up because some of the amendments that we choose to make to this proposed legislation, my hon. colleague from Jeanne-Le Ber in the NDP and members of the Liberal Party, really go beyond the scope of the bill in my opinion.
Back to the bill itself there is a case in point. Several years ago, by way of protest, the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador of the day, Danny Williams, ordered the provincial buildings to take down the Canadian flag. May I humbly suggest, do we send in the RCMP to the premier's office to serve an order? I bring this situation up simply because these are some of the things we may be faced with and certainly some things that changes in committee cannot get around.
There are many other aspects. For example, how have the provinces been brought into this conversation? Fundamentally, it works like this. The Attorney General of Canada makes an application in the superior court of the province and therefore provinces have to enact this. They have to ensure it is enforced. The first thing they do is to serve notice or serve a court order to tell a person not to fly the flag. If it goes beyond that, we are looking at a maximum of two years imprisonment which is particularly harsh given what we are dealing with here. In order to do that, the provinces have to carry this out. I do not know what conversations have taken place with the provinces on this piece of legislation, but it creates a myriad of responsibilities that have not been fundamentally addressed.
Despite the fact that we are all proud of our flag, our symbols, and our emblems, I believe that the headaches created by this would really be too much to handle right now. That is why I would have suggested the member move a private member's motion, committing this House to the flag itself and the freedom to fly the flag, and not so much to the penalty phase of it.
For example, there are so many questions that arise. I cannot stand in front members here today and hold up the Canadian flag. The Standing Orders say I cannot do that because it is a prop. Members are pointing to the flag that stands next to the Speaker. I cannot hold that flag because it is considered a prop. But it stands in its rightful place. So, there we have it. I have not been permitted to fly the flag, just as a point of reference.
Just by way of explanation, the bill has two orders. Primarily, the bill would give remedies that the court could use when someone is denied the right to fly the flag. They are restraining orders, injunctions, orders of compliance, and any such order necessary. The secondary punishments can be given at the discretion of the judge, including either a fine, the amount set at the discretion of the court, and again we go back to the provinces, or a prison term not to exceed two years.
I heard the member speak earlier about the situation he had with the condo development people. It is a good point. I do not think, in many of these cases, these people should be allowed to prohibit someone else from flying the national flag.
What about provincial flags? It is the same story. If I am not mistaken, I believe provincial flags are also owned by the Government of Canada. So, why are provincial flags not in here as well? I would suggest that could be the case.
The province of Quebec says that the provincial government buildings are not allowed to have many emblems on them regarding the Government of Canada, if I am not mistaken. Would we go to the province of Quebec and tell it we are going to serve it with an order and a prison term not exceeding two years and so forth?
We can see the layers and the problems that we would face with this. I would respectfully say that despite the good intentions of the bill, there is nothing we could amend in committee that would ensure these intentions remain just that, good intentions, as opposed to the problems that we would create and the situations that I have illustrated here.
It was tried in the United States in 2005. There were some changes that had to go through there. The bill was brought forward by Roscoe Bartlett. He was a member of the Republican Party and a member of the tea party faction of the party, if that actually exists. In any event, that is what he claimed. There were problems similar to what we are talking about here, and my hon. colleague from Jeanne-Le Ber mentioned the same thing.
I suspect that if we were to debate it today, it should have been a motion as opposed to a bill. That is why we are voting against this right now. I think there is another way of going about doing this. The ramifications within this particular proposed legislation, despite the good intentions, are not that functional, especially when we are dealing with the fact that we have the Attorney General of Canada petitioning provinces about doing this, and they have not really been brought into the discussion, as well. I am sure they would like to see much the same for their own flags.
I thank the House for this time, and I also would like to thank the member for his good intentions.