Apologizing Has Become A Cottage Industry And Guess Who Is Paying

I have made my position clear.....if an ancestor of mine was directly involved I might be prepared to "apologize" to the individual person he "wronged" but I refuse to accept responsibility for the actions of his generation.

Sorry to say, but the apology-seeking industry is thriving

JEFFREY SIMPSON

May 20, 2008 at 7:49 AM EDT

We were told 20 years ago, in 1988, that the apology would be the last because the injustice was the worst.

So declared then-prime minister Brian Mulroney in offering an apology, payments and a community fund for Japanese-Canadians interned during the Second World War. This was a terrible abuse, the prime minister said. It was a unique case. There would be no more.

Prime minister Pierre Trudeau, when previously pressed to do likewise, had resisted, arguing that we can only be just in our time and that once an apology (and more) was given for this or that historical event, there would be no end of demands for others.

How prescient was Mr. Trudeau. Mr. Mulroney's prediction, by contrast, was wrong. A mini-industry of apology-seekers developed and politicians have lined up to appease them.

The latest, but by no means the last, apology-seekers appeared gratified last week. Jason Kenney, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity (part-time Foreign Affairs Minister and leading ministerial ethnic vote-chaser), said the Harper government was working on an apology for the Komagata Maru incident of 1914. Commemorative grants of $2.5-million will also be announced.

The Komagata Maru was a ship that left Hong Kong in 1914 with 376 passengers, many of them Sikhs, most of whom were refused entry into Canada, because such were the immigration laws of the day.

The money will presumably flow from something called the Community Historical Recognition Program that invites aggrieved "ethno-cultural groups" to apply for money if their ancestors experienced "immigration restrictions" or were "affected by wartime measures."

We can be sure that this offer will be taken up by other groups, if the past is any guide.

After Mr. Mulroney declared the Japanese-Canadian settlement to be the only and last one, other groups stepped up their lobbying. The Chrétien government, taking the Trudeau line, was not sympathetic, but the gates opened with prime minister Paul Martin.

He set up an office with a $50-million budget for groups to seek federal money, and by the time of his defeat seven had already formed a queue. Chinese-, Ukrainian-, Italian-Canadians got different forms of redress, or recognition, and others were lining up for theirs.

The Liberals had always been the past masters of ethnic politics, but even they got tripped up by the victimization industry. Just before the 2005 election, the government announced $2.5-million for commemorating the head tax imposed on Chinese immigrants from 1885 to 1923.

That didn't go far enough for some Chinese-Canadians, so in the heat of the campaign Mr. Martin offered what his government had previously denied, an apology. And a campaigning opposition leader, Stephen Harper, under pressure from his candidates in the B.C. Lower Mainland, changed position to embrace an apology. In power, the Conservatives went further, handing out $20,000 ex gratia payments.

Even when Canadians have never been involved in tragedies, ethnic groups here still want recognition for their suffering, and these demands are apparently hard to resist. For example, the Harper government recognized the Armenian "genocide" in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, an episode that never touched Canada.

Of course, the apology/victimization momentum is best seen in aboriginal matters, especially in the sad history of residential schools.

In 1998, the Liberal government thought it had dealt with the matter by offering an apology and establishing a $350-million healing fund. The Globe and Mail editorial board intoned: "The horror of the residential school system for native children is finally being brought to a close."

Nice try. All sorts of lawsuits were launched by residential school attendees. Alternative dispute measures failed, so more than $1-billion was set aside for restitution. But even these measures fell short.

A truth and reconciliation commission has just been established to elucidate further the residential school story. The commission will work for five years, according to its work schedule. So after a formal apology, a healing fund and a large cash settlement comes a five-year commission and on June 11, Mr. Harper will make yet another apology.

While the commission carries on, other groups will follow in the wake of the people who argued successfully for the Komagata Maru apology, because two decades after Mr. Mulroney's assurance, the apology-seeking industry is alive, well and prospering.