Canada's new Conservative government banned the media from showing live images of the flag-draped coffins of four Canadian soldiers when their bodies were returned Tuesday from Afghanistan, angering political opponents and some families.The government also has stopped lowering flags to half-staff outside Parliament each time a Canadian soldier is killed, prompting Liberals to accuse Prime Minister Stephen Harper of trying to play down the growing human cost of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan.
Fifteen Canadians have been killed, including Cpl. Matthew Dinning, Bombardier Myles Mansell, Cpl. Randy Payne and Lt. William Turner, who were slain in a roadside bomb blast Saturday in southern Afghanistan in the deadliest attack against Canadian forces since they deployed to Afghanistan in 2002. Their remains arrived Tuesday before sundown at a base in Trenton, Ontario.
The media learned Monday that they would be barred from the evening ceremony, a decision that mirrors Bush administration policy blocking media coverage of the coffins of slain service members arriving in the United States.
Like the Pentagon, Canadian Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor cited privacy concerns as a reason for the media ban. "When the bodies return to Trenton, where the families receive the bodies for the first time and they come face to face with the reality that their loved ones are dead, this is for their private grief," O'Connor told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. on Tuesday. The four bodies are the first returned to Canada since the Conservative government took office.
O'Connor noted that media were allowed to cover the solemn send-off ceremony just before a Hercules transport plane left Kandahar with the bodies.
He also said the Conservatives _ who toppled the Liberals from nearly 13 years in power in January _ were returning to an 80-year-old tradition of honoring fallen soldiers by only lowering the flag on Parliament Hill once a year, on Nov. 11, Remembrance Day.
Harper dismissed accusations that he is using the power of his office to conceal Canada's mounting military casualties from the public spotlight. "It is not about photo-ops and media coverage," Harper told the House of Commons, which engaged in a raucous debate. "It is about what is in the best interests of the families."