On that pesky subject of apologies
A wonderful letter to the editor of the Toronto Star:
PM apologizes for 1914 ship tragedy, Aug. 6
As a Canadian whose ancestors go back to the foundation of the French colony, I am fed up with all these apologies. First to the Indians, then the Japanese, followed by the Chinese, now the gall of the Sikhs to decline the latest of these apologies. Nobody apologized to the Acadians for their deportation. Nor to the English emigrants for their treatment when they arrived in what is now Nova Scotia.
Our ancestors built this country amid controversy, mutual distrust and a few minor civil disorders, and created a nation of people who learned to live with each other. We probably bickered more than any other nation on Earth, but we have remained Canadians sharing grief and glory.
It is high time to tell the rest of the world that Canada is still one of the finest countries in the world to live in, but if you come here, you become a Canadian and you live by our laws and you put up with our customs.
Your customs belong in the country you left behind.
J.P. Desjardins, Trenton
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Pingback by Steynian 219 « Free Mark Steyn! — August 9, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
Nobody apologized to the Acadians for their deportation.
Mr. Desjardins suffers from a lack of historical knowledge.
As a descendant of Acadian deportees - actually we of Acadian ancestry tend to think of it as a more of an ‘ethnic cleansing’, a term which is also historically acknowledged - I can assure Mr. Desjardins that an apology by Canada, on behalf of the Queen of England, was indeed made in 2003. December 10, 2003 to be exact.
You and Mr. Desjardins would have been better served by checking the facts, ya’ know?
Comment by Frank Frink — August 9, 2008 @ 6:13 pm
Don’t mind Frank Frink. He frequently misses the point. In this case, that would be the point of apologies for historical transgressions being pointless.
Comment by Raphael Alexander — August 9, 2008 @ 7:23 pm
If that’s the point, then it’s wrong.
I think you should talk to some residential school folks about whether or not they felt the apology was “pointless”. Some probably did. But my impression is that most didn’t. And one who I’m quite close to - my wife, in fact, and a fairly tough and sceptical woman - was a bit shocked at how much hearing the Prime Minister’s words mattered to her.
It was no doubt “pointless” to you. But then it wasn’t intended to address a wrong that you had suffered.
Comment by balbulican — August 10, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
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