SORRY TO SAY, BUT THE APOLOGY-SEEKING INDUSTRY IS THRIVING
By Jeffrey Simpson, [email protected]
The Globe and Mail
May 20, 2008 Tuesday
Canada
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
Chretien 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, Enhanced Coverage LinkingStephen Harper, -Search using:
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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.