Posted By BY KAREN BEST
CHRONICLE STAFF WRITER
June 24, 2008
A defaced Canadian flag was taken down from the entrance to Douglas Creek Estates after open communications between Ontario Provincial Police and members of Six Nations.
The small flag had a black spray painted circle around the leaf and a single diagonal line across the leaf.
On June 19, the flag was sighted hanging on a small wood post at the entrance to DCE. A few days later South Cayuga resident Donna Pitcher walked onto the former subdivision property in Caledonia and asked two people if they would remove it or if she could. They turned down both options, she reported.
Later in the day, Pitcher filed an official complaint asking OPP to act and if they did not, she planned to contact the RCMP.
A couple hours earlier, open communications had been initiated and by noon on Tuesday, the flag was gone, said McLean.
While defacing a flag is disturbing, disrespectful and inappropriate, it is not illegal because there is no victim, he noted. "As far as we are concerned, it was freedom of expression," said McLean.