A flag honouring the annual March For Life has been taken down from a City Hall flagpole.

Seven city councillors had called on the city to lower the flag shortly after it had gone up Thursday.

The city had proclaimed the day "March for Life Day," a proclamation that has been made in past years.

But this is the first time the anti-abortion protest's flag has been flown at city hall.

The councillors - Catherine McKenney, Diane Deans, Marianne Wilkinson, Tobi Nussbaum, Jeff Leiper, Mathieu Fleury, and Jan Harder - said they were outraged.

They said the flag represents "a personal conviction to restrict a woman's right to a safe and legal abortion."

The seven added the right to abortion is constitutionally protected, and while citizens are welcome to demonstrate against it, city policy says flag raisings will not be done for issues that represent "individual conviction."

Just before 3:00 p.m. Thursday, Councillor Diane Deans tweeted a picture of the flag being removed.

Happy to announce that the pro life flag has been taken down at #Ottawa City Hall pic.twitter.com/8f7QU545QR — Diane Deans (@dianedeans) May 11, 2017

After hearing of the controversy, Mayor Jim Watson said he's asked the city clerk to review of the Proclamations and Flag raising policy.

He reiterated that in a tweet he sent out after the flag had come down.

I am pleased to report that the anti abortion flag has been taken down. I have asked staff for a complete review of the city's flag policy — Jim Watson (@JimWatsonOttawa) May 11, 2017

City Solicitor Rick O'Connor said in a memo the flag contravened the City's flag-raising protocol procedures, and he ordered its removal.

First, I want to apologize to Members of Council with respect to today’s flag raising. While the City’s Flag Protocol Procedures mirror the City’s Proclamation Policy in many ways, a review of this matter has determined that the request for the flag raising was made by an individual. This does not meet the criteria and, when this was discovered, the flag was taken down under my authority. The Mayor has requested a review of the Flag Protocol Procedures and the City’s Proclamation Policy, which will be reported back. The process for issuing proclamations and approving flag raisings is overseen by the Office of Protocol to ensure that the City’s policies are interpreted without a political lens and in keeping with the Ontario Human Rights Code. As the request from this anti-choice group met the test of both policies, the proclamation was issued, as it has been for many years. This is the first year the request has been made for a flag raising. It was granted on the same basis as the proclamation.

O'Connor's memo also outlines the Proclamations policy.

The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that, because proclamations issued by Mayors in Ontario are a service subject to the provisions of the Human Rights Code, the refusal of a Mayor to issue a proclamation may constitute a contravention of the Human Rights Code if the decision of the Mayor was based on any reason that is protected in the Code or by case law related to the Code. ... For this reason, the City of Ottawa’s Policy specifically indicates a Proclamation “should not be interpreted as an endorsement by either the Mayor or the City of Ottawa.’’ Because the City of Ottawa chooses to issue proclamations, they are provided on request to groups where the request does not violate the Ontario Human Rights Code. Only proclamations that are contrary to the City of Ottawa's policies or bylaws, discriminatory, espousing hatred, violence or racism, illegal, not located within the boundaries of the City of Ottawa, politically or religiously motivated or intended for profit-making purposes may be refused. It should be noted that “politically or religiously motivated” means affiliated for or against specific political parties or candidates or religions.

The flag was flying on only one of more than a dozen flagpoles at City Hall.

The man who requested the flag be flown, 89-year-old Francis Barrett, told CFRA's Ottawa Now with Evan Solomon that he made the request through the City's protocol office, and had the flag approved with very little resistance.

"I dealt with a man in the protocol department. I had excellent talks with him. We were very agreeable to everything."

He says he originally wanted to fly a different flag, but he was told it had to reference the "March for Life."

"I said, okay, we have a flag that says that. It's a couple of years old but I can get it. So I got it, and everything was fine. There was no disputes, no problems, nothing."

Barrett says he and about 30 other people were at City Hall around 5:15 a.m. for the flag raising. He admits that because he didn't reserve the flag a month in advance, no one from City Hall could attend the raising, but a security guard came out to help.

"I put the flag up. The security guards usually do it with a crank, but because we were having a little photo op he said, 'Do you want to do it?' and I said, 'I'd appreciate that.'"

Watson says it appears there was communication problem somewhere along the chain.

"I think there was obviously a communications problem between the individual that asked for it and the City Clerk's office. But mistakes are made and we have to learn from them, and move on, and come up with a policy that is better and fairer and doesn't get us into these divisive debates about abortion. The last thing we need is an abortion debate at City Hall, quite frankly."

The March For Life sees thousands of people protest against abortion on Parliament Hill annually.