The House of Commons passed a Liberal motion on Wednesday calling for a moment of silence and the lowering of the flag above the Peace Tower on any day a Canadian soldier is killed overseas.

The motion, supported by the Liberals and the NDP, passed 142-115.

It states the measures should be observed "to show respect and to honour Canadian Forces and other Canadian government personnel who are killed while serving in overseas peacekeeping, peacemaking or humanitarian missions."

The Conservative government, whose members opposed the motion, has said it favours recommendations made by an expert panel it appointed to examine the issue, which called for the flag to be lowered only on Nov. 11 to honour those who have died in military service.

The Tories have suggested they will ignore the result of the House vote and ask a committee to come up with a wide-ranging policy on when the flag should be at half-mast.

For more than 80 years, Canada honoured its war dead by lowering flags on federal buildings only on Remembrance Day.

But former prime minister Jean Chrétien changed that in April 2002. When four Canadian soldiers were killed by U.S. bombs in Afghanistan, the flag on the Peace Tower was lowered to half-mast.

Despite the enormous public outpouring of anger and grief over the soldiers' deaths by U.S. fire, veterans' groups were not happy about the Chrétien government's decision to change the Remembrance Day tradition.

Officials with both the Royal Canadian Legion and the National Council of Veteran Associations opposed the idea, arguing it was unfair to the memories of those who died in other wars and who were not given the same show of respect.

When the Conservatives came to power in 2006, they discontinued the practice of lowering the flag for military deaths in war zones.

The panel appointed by the Tories also recommended flag-lowering on so-called "special days" — including the annual National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women, and Police and Peace Officers' National Memorial Day — should be scrapped.

With files from the Canadian Press