Mr. Speaker, I would defer to you because of your charm as well as your learning.
I was really saying that what would have been an understandably spontaneous action lost some of its attraction when there was a three day interregnum. I think it is correct to say, as an hon. member on this side who was associated with the incident said on March 9 in the House, it may have been ill advised but it never was supposed to go this far. It took intellectual courage and honesty for the hon. member concerned to make that remark and I think he is right. This debate should have been closed then and there.
Since we have a motion on the order paper today, let me simply say that our reaction and attitude to our country and the symbols of our nationhood are changing. The two founding nations, perhaps because they regretted their 19th century history which was rather bloody and rather inconsiderate of other people, tended to develop a certain self-restraint. What was very noticeable in the twenties, thirties, forties, the World War II period and just before, was an absence of the breast beating nationalism in many parts of continental Europe.
I remember the greatest of the Conservative leaders in Canada during the post-war period, Premier John Robarts whom I advised, defending the choice—and it was much in controversy—of the maple leaf flag as the Canadian flag against some very angry Conservatives who said that people fought and died under the Union Jack in the last war. He replied, as somebody who had served in the Mediterranean theatre in small boats, that none of us fought and died under flags in Word War II, that you would have given away your cover. Let us be realistic. Symbols of that sort were more relevant in the 19th century. He was representing an attitude of self-restraint which reflected the thinking of people in the two founding nations at that period.
The United States Supreme Court in World War II gave two massive rulings. I remember studying them as a law student. They were key to the evolution of American constitutional democracy. One sometimes thinks in Canada that the Americans are given to excessive breast beating displays of nationalism. In 1942, in the Gobitis case, the court ruled by an eight to one majority that school children could be compelled to salute the flag even though it violated their religious beliefs.
There was such a flood of criticism of that decision, including from marines serving in the Pacific theatre, “is it the country we are fighting for”, that the court reversed that decision two years later. It was a defining moment in Americans' attitude to themselves and to their symbols.
We recognize the change in this country, the influence of immigration, the influence of our passage to a multicultural, plural society in which the views of new cultural communities are as relevant and determining as those of other people.
In 1994 the Speaker of the House introduced what you have on the left and the right of his chair, Mr. Speaker, the Canadian flag. It was not displayed before but he introduced that and it has been a practice supported by all of us. In 1994 he also introduced the practice—and I think it was first suggested by the hon. member for Edmonton North—of singing the national anthem each Wednesday afternoon. Again it is a practice that all parties in the House have supported.
Each generation of Canadians has the right to redefine its attitudes to the nation including its choice of symbols. It may well be that we have been less demonstrative than we should have been.
I remember visiting India in the post-war period 15 years after independence and being struck by the fact that the main traffic circle in town, which had a huge, monumental plinth, was still dominated by a statue of King George V of Great Britain. One said to the Indians “Does he not represent the past?” The Indians said “yes, but we have no inferiority complex. In time we will remove the statue,” and they did 10 years later. In other words it should not be assumed that the new immigrants will follow the attitudes of colleagues from the other side of the House just referred to.
One remembers the East German regime of Mr. Honecker, which was dramatically in evidence for the gymnastic displays, those three or four hours of sporting exhibitions accompanied by literally thousands of flags. In 1989 the Berlin wall fell and the particular flag Mr. Honecker had supported disappeared into the dustbin of history.
We are looking for a way of reconciling new attitudes, new expectations of what our national symbols should be with the more traditional values which I think have been toward self-restraint.
Perhaps with a certain degree of smugness Canadians have set themselves aside from other people. We do not need to say that we are Canadians. We know. We have confidence in our future. We know that we have a great future. We know that we are a tolerant people. This process is a legitimate one and one that we would all welcome, but I wonder whether, in the aftermath of the incident in the House on February 26, this is the right time and context in which to consider it.
I believe that the House put forward a sensible suggestion that it go to a very powerful and prestigious committee of the House which you once chaired, Mr. Speaker, in one of your earlier periods. You were an erudite, an eloquent and perhaps a loquacious incumbent of the chairmanship of that committee, but you did well by us and we did well by you.
My suggestion to the hon. members opposite, to the hon. member for Edmonton North who was active in the movement to display the flags on either side of the chair and the singing of the anthem, why not recall the motion? Why not let it go to the committee so in a proper context of calmness we can consider what redefinition, if any, we want to make of what we have already done?
