Original Maple Leaf flag held hostage by MP's widow

Elisabeth Hoffmann-Lamoureux has Canada's first Maple Leaf flag, the one raised on the Peace Tower on Feb. 15, 1965, tucked away in her home in Belgium. The flag was given to her late husband, Lucien Lamoureux, a former Speaker of the House.

The European woman who has the historic banner wants to "clear up" whether she's owed money from her late husband's federal pension.

"Why should I be in a hurry to hand this flag over to a government who refuses to me what I guess all widows are normally entitled to?"

In telephone interviews from her Brussels law office this week, she even raised the possibility of auctioning the historic national artifact on eBay.