The House of Commons on Wednesday passed a mischievous and wrong-headed Liberal motion demanding that the flag on the Peace Tower in Ottawa be lowered to half-mast whenever a Canadian soldier is killed abroad.

The fact that the suggestion is controversial, however, does not mean that it is wrong, which is where the Liberal motion becomes wrong-headed in its potential destructive consequences. It would accomplish only two things -- to inflame anti-war sentiment in an already divided nation using the powerful symbol of sorrow that a flag at half-mast becomes. And it would further dilute the power of that symbol, a power that becomes thinner every time another occasion is designated as appropriate for it. Flags are lowered so frequently now that few people any longer pay much attention to them.