"Ungodly to look at"

That would be the Turkish flag, pictured above.

The management of an Oshawa apartment complex has, for the second year running, ordered a Turkish-born resident to remove the flag from his balcony, where he had placed it to celebrate Republic Day.

Quoth the building manager, one "Diane":

It was a huge red flag in the middle of the living room window, in the middle of the balcony. It was very ungodly to look at."

When Mahmut Bak protested that other residents were permitted to place flags on their balconies, this is what the manager circulated to all residents of the building:

Could you please remove your flag from your balcony. This is a result of asking the person . . . to take his Turkish one down. He is yelling discrimination.

At least one tenant displaying a Canadian flag protested. Two days later, it was all a terrible mistake:

Gerald Ash was asked to take down the small Canadian flag he had affixed to the inside of his balcony with a plastic tie.

“I just had a little one, the kind you fly outside your car. I’ve been here seven and a half months and no one has said squat about it. Now, all of a sudden, some guy puts a Turkish flag up and I have to take mine down. That’s ridiculous,” Ash said.

But now, two days after the memo went out, management says it’s all a big misunderstanding. Erika Bradbury, a senior property manager for Valiant, said the policy has always been that residents cannot make holes in the building exterior to hang any object and that items cannot dangle over the balcony edge.

She sent Ash an email Thursday stating that management “does not, nor has it ever had, anything against properly displayed flags on tenant balconies.”

It’s good news for Ash who’s eager to put his flag back up for Remembrance Day in honour of his great-grandfather who fought in World War I.

Perhaps needless to say, however, Bak has received no such email. Welcome to Stephen Harper's Canada, 2010.

[H/t Emre]