A Pre-fab Prime Ministerial Apology
August 7, 2008 by Paul McKeever
Dear Prime Minister,
So that the matter of outstanding apologies to the descendants of people long since offended and dead by people long since dead might be dealt with once and for all, I have prepared a kill-#-birds with one stone speech for your use:
“On behalf of all Y-Canadians, Z-Canadians, and other Canadians, I hereby sincerely apologize to all X-Canadians for what the great, great parents of some Y, Z, and other Canadians did to the great great grandparents of X-Canadians.
On behalf of all X-Canadians, Z-Canadians, and other Canadians, I hereby sincerely apologize to all Y-Canadians for what the great, great parents of some X, Z, and other Canadians did to the great great grandparents of Y-Canadians.
And, on behalf of all X-Canadians, Y-Canadians, and other Canadians, I hereby sincerely apologize to all Z-Canadians for what the great, great parents of some X, Y, and other Canadians did to the great great grandparents of Z-Canadians.
I would now ask X-Canadians, Y-Canadians, Z-Canadians, and all other Canadians please to advance to the CRA wicket to pay our new Sins of the Ancients tax. Thereafter, please proceed to the Department of Love wicket to collect your cheque.”
Of course, the letters X, Y, and Z can be replaced with the names of any groups currently seeking an apology. However, given the current intellectual milieu, might I suggest that you include an apology to all those descendents who, in the future, might choose to be offended?
And, while you’re at it, why not cut them a cheque too? In fact, why not just cut us all a cheque to complete the process? It’s been a while since I took money out of my right pocket and put it into my left. And, come to think of it, I’ve got some feelings of offence brewing inside me about what was done by my great-grandmother’s people to my grandfather’s people…of course, she had her reasons, but those relate to MacDonalds and Campbells and I do not wish to remind anyone, with the exhumation of some ancient Scottish grievances, that it was a MacDonald who founded a certain party, and a Campbell who killed it…well, she tried anyway, I’ll give her that much credit.
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