There was some discussion above about Canadian values. Here's an incident that I think is a great example.

A couple of years ago, a small crowd of Phelps-inspired people came up to Ottawa to protest a Supreme Court ruling over the meaning of "spouse" (for those who don't recognize the name, Phelps is the "minister" who organizes homophobic demonstrations - harrassing Matthew Shephard's funeral with signs like "God hates fags" and so on).

The plan was for them to burn a Canadian flag. However, it became apparent that none of the demonstrators had burned a flag before and weren't sure how exactly to do it. So a Mountie who was there to keep the peace explained to them how to burn the flag so that nobody would get hurt.

The Mountie was criticized by some, but I thought he did a great job - both at making the homophobes look like fools, and at upholding my values (i.e., that preventing people from getting hurt is more important than worrying over some symbolic gesture).

Marion