Here we go:
There are obvious shortcomings associated with people other than the perpetrator issuing apologies.
This is important. I'll read it again, because I'm not sure everybody heard it.
There are obvious shortcomings associated with people other than the perpetrator issuing apologies. The person in authority may not have been in power at the time of the wrongdoing and may have no or little connection with the events in question.
I take it by this statement that any bill that doesn't include a formal apology by the leader of the Liberal Party at the time, for the injustices of six previous Liberal prime ministers, would be insufficient in actually living up to all of the terms of a real apology. How can you have an apology that doesn't include an apology by the Liberal Party for having first interned Italian Canadians and identifying them as enemy aliens? And how can you then excuse Prime Ministers St. Laurent, Pearson, Trudeau, Turner, Chrétien, and...I'll take Prime Minister Martin off the list, because he did apologize actually. I thought he hadn't, but research tells me he has, so I'll take him off that list for now.
Still, this bill is going to have to be changed, if we go forward, to have an explicit apology, I would suggest, by the current leader of the Liberal Party to the Italian people for the injustices and for ignoring the Italian people for over 60 years with respect to an apology.
It goes on further and says:
An apology delivered from someone who is remote from the events may be more susceptible to a poor reaction. Expressions of sympathy or regret, for example, may be viewed as being strategic rather than sincere.
Now, that's interesting, because I've talked about the “strategicness” of this bill and how it splits the community and how it probably would have been better done when there was a majority government as opposed to a minority government. As is so often the case.... I sometimes feel bad for the Liberals that they only had four majority governments and they didn't get the fifth, because I know this is something they would have brought forward if they had only gotten that extra majority government.
I did note, and I will say this for my friend Mr. Angus, that the NDP did bring forward a motion in 2007. So they actually were seized with this. I could find no evidence of something like this ever having been brought forward by any Liberal members before this time, but as Tavuchis, who is a professor I talked about earlier, suggests:
The principal function...of all collective apologizing...has little to do with sorrow or sincerity but rather with putting things on the public record.
That's what he talks about when sometimes you bring an apology in a format that doesn't fit the test of an apology, unlike the apology that was given by Prime Minister Mulroney to the people at the request of the NCIC, who invited him to attend and speak. In fact, I'm told they brought in a lot more people at that function, a lot of other agencies and a lot of other groups that represent Italians. They felt that was an historic moment, so they wanted a lot of Italians to hear that.
Now, Martha Minnow cautions:
Forgiveness is a power held by the victimized, not a right to be claimed. The ability to dispense, but also to withhold, forgiveness is an ennobling capacity and part of the dignity to be reclaimed by those who survive the wrongdoing. Even an individual survivor who chooses to forgive, cannot, properly, forgive in the name of other victims. To expect survivors to forgive is to heap yet another burden on them.
So what Ms. Minnow, who is an acclaimed scholar in apologies, is suggesting is that nobody can claim to speak for all communities. Only the wronged do; only the victims can speak or accept an apology. So it would be absolutely impossible, as was suggested here by some of the witnesses, to suggest that they speak on behalf of all Italians, because that, certainly, would not meet the test of an appropriate apology that would stand the test of time and that would actually heal the wrongs.
Indeed, if there are no survivors—and I think there are none—this apology or any apology, as not really outlined in the bill, won't meet the test of time and will be open to future claims.
Professor Lazare describes the healing process and how an apology can promote healing. The professor said:
[W]hat makes an apology work is the exchange of shame and power between the offender and the offended. By apologizing, you take the shame of your offense and redirect it to yourself. You admit to hurting or diminishing someone and, in effect, say that you are really the one who is diminished--I'm the one who was wrong, mistaken, insensitive, or stupid. In acknowledging your shame you give the offended the power to forgive. The exchange is at the heart of the healing process.
Now, it is unfortunate that for 60 years the Liberals ignored the survivors and refused to make the apology, so we can't now have that level of forgiveness that will be needed, because there are no victims. But thankfully, Prime Minister Mulroney, in 1990, took the initiative, negotiated with the NCIC, was invited to address them and to apologize, so we could have that level of healing that is so essential if any apology is to actually be effective.
And clearly we're asking the Parliament of Canada, the Prime Minister of Canada—the office of the Prime Minister, it doesn't matter who fills the seat—to make an apology, and so far I haven't seen that this bill meets any part of the essential elements of an effective apology.
Thankfully, Prime Minister Mulroney has met all of these obligations.
The author went on to talk in this report.... And I'm not going to read, because I think my honourable friend did a great job the other day of explaining why other apologies were different. The author goes into the Canadian residential schools, and she talks about our first nations and the head tax and why they are different and why they required a different type of an apology. She goes into great depth. I can read it if the members would like me to. But I might reference that a bit later, because I don't want to take up all the time. I might reference it a little bit later, but I'll put it aside for now, and if I have time left at the end when I summarize about my family, then I'll get back to it.
But there are some other elements here that I think are so important in how we're going to amend or change or maybe even defeat the bill so that we can come up.... Again, Mr. Chair, I do leave an olive branch open. I wish the member had come to one of the two Italians who are actually on the government side and talked about this first, because we might have avoided a lot of the problems with this if we had taken it seriously and had a thoughtful approach, as Prime Minister Mulroney had, as opposed to rushing something through and trying to separate the community between Montreal and Toronto and Liberals and Conservatives. But anyway, we can talk about that in a bit.
I'll just get on to some of the other important points of this. As I said, if you guys want me to read some of this, I can. It mentions ethical implications—