MPs are to vote on a motion on lowering the Canadian flag on the Parliament buildings' Peace Tower for dead soldiers, even as a report recommends cutting back on the honour.
Ontario Liberal MP Andrew Telegdi will table a motion Wednesday calling for the flag to be lowered to honour "Canadian Forces and other Canadian government personnel who were killed while serving in overseas peacekeeping, peacemaking or humanitarian missions."
A flap occurred in 2006 when the Conservative government tried to put a halt to that practice, begun under Paul Martin's Liberals and a break from earlier protocols.
The motion is expected to pass, but the government has signalled it will ignore the move, which is non-binding.
"We think we should have a general policy that makes sense, that values the very important symbolism of the Peace Tower and the National Flag," said Jason Kenney, secretary of state for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity.
A Canadian Legion official told 愛污传媒net's Mike Duffy Live on Tuesday that his group endorses the report's view that "the flag should come down once a year on Nov. 11, Remembrance Day."
Bob Butt said the Legion does not support the lowering of the flag for each individual soldier's death.
Constantly lowering and raising the flag "would debase its use," he said.
The panel -- led by Robert Watt, Canada's former chief herald -- would restrict the flag's lowering to marking the deaths of current and former representatives of the Crown, the prime minister and the Supreme Court's chief justice.
"It's important to limit the number of occasions," Watt said.
If the government adopted the panel's recommendations, it would no longer lower the flag for the deaths of current or former senators or MPs.
The report recommends against lowering the flag on Dec. 6, the day that commemorates violence against women, and during the last weekend of September -- a time that honours peace officers who die in the line of duty.
Tony Cannavino of the Canadian Police Association said when he read about the recommendation Tuesday morning, "I thought it was a bad April Fool's joke."
He thought flags should be half-staff across the country on Sept. 6. "It's all about respect for the men and women that have made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty," he said.
Under the recommendations, the flag would no longer be lowered to honour workers who die on the job, something that currently happens on April 28.
"To curtail it now that they've established it, they're going to create more problems than anything that the committee thinks it's solved with these recommendations," said Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress.
Butt noted the process is still very much in flux. "Who knows what will come out in the final say," he said.
With a report from CTV's Roger Smith
