"Somebody who defaces the Canadian flag should be put in jail for life," said Ottawa Liberal MP Mac Harb. Scarborough East Conservative Bob Hicks believes the best way to deal with flag abusers is to "revoke their citizenship for two years, take their passports and tell them to get the hell out..."
I'm not sure I would get very far outside Canada without my passport, but this is mere quibbling. The MPs were arguing in favour of Bill C-227, which would make it a crime to "burn, deface, mutilate or otherwise desecrate" the Canadian flag.
Lord knows, flag desecration has reached epic proportions, threatening to rend the moral fiber of this great land. It's just that, well, I'm a little unclear as to what I could be prosecuted for if this private members bill was enacted. For instance, would it be against the law to cut the flag into little pieces as part of a magic act if I intended to make it whole again?
Would it be against the law to make a t-shirt out of a flag? If it faded in successive washings, would I be liable for prosecution? What if I was eating a hot dog from one of Toronto's many street vendors, and mustard accidentally dripped on the t-shirt? Would I have to prove I had taken every reasonable precaution to see that it hadn't?
If somebody stabbed a person wearing a flag t-shirt in the chest, could the attacker be prosecuted for flag desecration? If the victim bled all over the t-shirt, could he or she be prosecuted?
If the flag appears on television, would it be illegal to turn the set off? If I digitally store an image of the flag in a computer, would it be illegal to erase it? If I randomly scramble the pixels, would I be committing a crime?
If I place a flag in a bottle of my own urine and - okay, let's not go there.
If somebody runs out of a burning building, fire in his or her hair and down his or her back, and the only thing that immediately comes to hand is a flag, could I use it to help put the fire on the person out, even though there would be a serious risk of singing the flag?
If I display a flag in the back window of my car, would I not be allowed to enter a demolition derby? What if I was accidentally rear-ended? What if I decided to sell the car for scrap?
Would it be against the law to bake a cake in the image of the flag for Canada day? Would it be against the law to eat it? How about cutting it into pieces? (And, how could people eat it without cutting it first? Or, would they all be accomplices?)
Will I be allowed to keep the flag in a closet I know contains moths? What if I was vacationing in Spain and wanted to use a Canadian flag to fight bulls? I am not being facetious, here (well, not entirely); I just want to be sure I understand all the ramifications of the proposed law.
Suppose I had a cold, and there was no Kleenex in the house and I had run out of toilet paper, and it was three in the morning and absolutely nothing was open and we had just taken our flag down for the evening - well, how would you blow your nose? And, should you go to jail for it?
What if I made a book cover out of a flag? What if the book was banned by fundamentalists and thrown onto a fire? (Poetic justice, some might say.)
What if I sent the book to a recycling plant? Would I be able to take pride in the fact I was doing something positive for the environment even as the police read me my rights and carted me away?
What would be the legality of lining a trampoline with Canadian flags? Could I be arrested in mid-air, or would the police have to wait until my feet came into contact with the flags?
Does this law come with a provision for the legal destruction of Canadian flags? If not, we run the risk of being overrun with the things. It could prove to be a nightmare, with flags in every public and private space, the Maple Leaf looking down at you...watching you...forever...
Or, common sense could prevail and our politicians could stop mistaking symbols of the country with the country itself. Until then, I'd suggest every Canadian citizen study the law very carefully...
