| Recently the media and the Liberals have had 'fun' making the lowering of the Canadian Flag on Parliament Hill and issue, when a soldier is killed. Here is my take.
Guys, this is nothing but political gamesmenship, a public unaware of most things military, tied to an equally and disturbingly uninformed media - some of whom are blatantly anti-conservative and/or anti-military, along with an inept government media process.
The lowering of the Canadian Flag on Parliament Hill, would be the equivalent if the US flag was lowered on Capital Hill, and at the White House everytime a US soldier, sailor, or air force member dies. This lowering of the flag was started for partisan political purposes to try and make people think that former PM Jean Chretien and his former Finance Minister/former PM Paul Martin gave a rat's ass about the Canadian military. In fact these two did more to hurt Canadian military personnel and their families than any other PM since PM King, and for non-Canadians this would take us back more than a 1/2 century. The Liberals under these two characters gutted funding to a military that had undergone cutbacks for 3-decades and then they slashed the funding by 23% - the largest cut to any department.
This very recent, and I'd suggest unsound policy, was done to make the Liberals look good, and not because it followed either historic norms, nor followed military protocol. Secondly, showing families grieving upon the return of their fallen loved ones was something that many soldiers and ex-soldiers have troubles with, and this did occur in the last few years. There will be plenty of time for Canadians to mourn with the families, especially service personnel who knew the deceased, when they have formal memorial services, which the regiments hold, and those services are usually covered by the media.
Getting back to the flag issue, can you imagine if in the US as an example, that the White House, Capital Building, and every federal building perpetually had the flag at half mast for each soldier killed. Well that is extactly what would have happened in Iraq, or in Korea, or WWII, and WWI. That would have given the enemy comfort while doing precious little for the morale of the troops, nor give comfort to those at home. I would also hazard a guess that I doubt if the regimental HQ flew their flags at half mast for the same reasons; especially with losses that ran into the hundreds of thousands when adding up all the losses in WWII.
The real problem here is political gamesmanship, a public and media that are totally uneducated as to these matters, and an inept media approach by a government that is too top down heavy in media control.
At least that's the way I see it.
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