is "sorry" canada's 2nd national anthem?

Image borrowed from here.

"Sorry is a christly, bloody, useless word".
  (Christie in Margaret Laurence's "The Diviners" )

Because sorry is as sorry does.

It's a cagey word; sometimes it is pure sarcasm, and too often it's designed to end all discussion. God help anyone who accepts it at face value.

The Guardian says "it's Canada's second national anthem"

• Canada’s sorriest prime minister is getting on people’s nerves. “What else does he do, besides apologize for things that happened years and years ago?”

The more I see of Trudeau in action, the more perturbed I become. Does he hear himself? Or is he just trying to please his handlers?

Forget "sorry", Justin. Try some different words, like, for instance: "It shouldn't have happened then and it shouldn't be happening now."  And then come up with a plan to make sure it's not happening now.

Canada’s failing refugee system is leaving thousands in limbo

• Neglected by the federal government and facing an influx of claimants, the refugee system is leaving thousands in a brutally long holding pattern that's only growing longer

Canada can't even make up its mind about the people that Trump has turned away. Who will issue the apology for that?

Even more to the point: Why isn't Canada opening its arms to Palestinian refugees?

• There are more than a half-million Palestinian refugees scattered across Syria in nine refugee camps. Their presence is a result of displacement caused by years or even decades of persecution.

The Government of Canada, under the heading "Palestinian Refugees" says this:

• Canada has played a prominent role in the search for a viable and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian refugee issue, including through continuing to focus international attention on improving the situation of the more than four million Palestinian refugees.

It most definitely does not say, "We welcome Palestinian refugees to Canada".

Surely it doesn't escape attention that the issue of the turned-away boatful of Jews was raised just as the inauguration of the US Embassy in Jerusalem was about to begin, drawing attention away from the Nakba remembrance -- and, as it turns out -- from the slaughter of children that took place, even as the lofty, self-righteous speeches droned on.

Even the United Nations, which in the past has routinely turned a blind eye to Israel's snubbing of UN Resolutions, has felt it necessary to speak firmly against the goings-on.

VIDEOS: 'Enough is Enough': UN Condemns Israel as Palestinians Bury Those Killed

As for the well-dressed and quaffed Barbie and Ken, masquerading as representatives of the US Presidency, one is left to wonder what kind of hollowed-out people can sit listening to flowery speeches while murder most foul is happening only a short distance away?

There's only one possible answer to that:  they are not people, they are robots, with metal where there should be hearts and brains.

I want to say as LOUDLY as possible: if Trudeau thinks, in his movie role as Prime Minister, that he is apologizing on my behalf as a Canadian citizen, he can think again - if he thinks at all.

I did not, nor would I ever have, turned away any boat of refugees, whether Jewish, Irish or Muslim. That's the sort of thing a government does, without even wondering what the people might have wanted done if they even knew what was going on.

Nor do I think Canada's Native peoples should look for or accept any kind of apology from the government while treaties are still not honoured, while the residential schools can still be characterized by a Senator as "well intentioned", and while disarray has mysteriously run rampant in the show-piece investigation into well over a thousand missing women.

As for us children born at the start of WWII, the absence -- for many, a forever absence -- of a father, and the mere trinkets pinned onto the chests of those fathers who returned alive (though damaged physically and/or mentally), and the absolute farce of Remembrance Day, cannot come anywhere near atoning for what we and our mothers were left to cope with during and after the war, nor for the barefaced lie that it was "the war to end all wars".

Especially since we now know that wars are all about profits, and manufactured enemies.

Wars, displacement, death and gross destruction are commonplace -- and still as rewarding to those who supply the means of destruction and the sham of "rebuilding" - and for those who help to propagate the lies that justify the carnage.

Surely, no thinking Jewish person can be gratified by Trudeau's politically expedient apology.

And any child can understand the following analogy:

​If a group of Ottawa's homeless people broke into a private home and locked its residents in the garage where there was no clean, running water and only as much food as allowed them by the invaders, this would be denounced by all as unlawful and immoral, no matter how desperate for shelter they might have been, and no matter that their ancestors may once have owned that property. Nobody would be surprised or consider it "terrorism" if the former residents did everything possible to get back into their house - or at least make things uncomfortable for the interlopers.

And that goes for our displacement of the peoples who were here before our forebears barged into Canada. They deserve every reasonable consideration they ask for.

The Palestinians are not unreasonable in their requests. And as an occupied people, they have the right to protest.

It doesn't take a brain to see what's been happening in Israel. It takes a heart. It takes respect for what's fair and the willingness to see what isn't fair. It takes repeating the words "Never Again" until they become real, and actually mean something.

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