WINNIPEG - For those grieving the death of a loved one, usually in a traffic accident, a roadside memorial is more than a collection of teddy bears and candles.
It's sacred ground.
But for many others, the make-shift shrines are eyesores and dangerous distractions that need an expiration date.
The emotional issue of whether time limits should be imposed on public grieving has landed squarely at the door of Canadian municipalities.
The Toronto-area suburb of Vaughan has proposed keeping an inventory of memorials and requiring that they be taken down after a year.
Calgary has commissioned an academic study to determine how people feel about the shrines and whether they affect driver behaviour.
Officials in Prince Albert, Sask., were criticized this summer for considering a policy that would require a memorial be taken down three months after a person's death.
Now Winnipeg is reviewing the rules about how long remembrances of a departed friend or family member should stay in place.
"I can't believe, at the end of the day, anyone who is grieving a loved one would have an honest expectation that a memorial in these types of circumstances should exist forever," says Winnipeg Coun. Gord Steeves. "I just can't imagine that."
The debate was sparked in his neighbourhood by a roadside memorial to two men who died more than a year ago. It was taken down twice while someone put up a sign suggesting that the dead should be remembered in a cemetery.
Most cities have quietly ignored the fact that such shrines break the law, says Steeves, who adds that it's time for politicians to take responsibility and set time limits.
"It is unacceptable to me that this horrible incident can manifest itself again and again through acrimony in the community."
Community discussion boards are abuzz with debates about whether it's appropriate to put candles, crosses and flowers by the side of roads. One blogger has argued that such memorials are a good reminder to drive carefully. Another finds them "distasteful to the max."
The person with the latter view wrote: "I have asked my loved ones to ensure that no such memorial goes up in the event that I die an untimely death. A tombstone in a cemetery somewhere will suffice for me."
Still another voice: "People grieve in their own ways, and it doesn't really hurt me to let them. I'm willing to overlook an eyesore if it's helping someone get over the loss. How selfish is it not to?"
City staff in Winnipeg are expected to come back with recommendations within months.
Bruce Miller, a Nova Scotia police officer, was driving to a hunting lodge in Prince Edward Island five years ago when he was killed by a drunk driver. Until a roadside memorial was erected in his honour, the site was just a non-descript strip of road, suggests his mother, Margaret Miller.
"You're driving by the scene and there is no record," says Miller, who is the Canadian president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. "When you put up this memorial, all of a sudden that place is designated as some place that was important to the family. It just hasn't been forgotten."
MADD Canada has agreements with most provinces to allow special roadside memorials for people who have been killed by drunk drivers. But Miller agrees they should be regulated in some way. "We can't just randomly be putting things up by the roadside."
The leader of the study in Calgary, Richard Tay, says memorials are an increasingly familiar sight on North American roads and everyone seems to have an opinion about them. That, he adds, makes if hard for politicians to impose rules.
"We need to have scientific evidence to base our decision on."
