SNOBELEN: Please forgive my apology

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau listens to a question during a discussion at the Canadian Teachers Federation annual general meeting in Ottawa, Thursday July 11, 2019.Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS

It’s time to ban all political apologies.

I suspect that Apollo, the Greek God of light and healing, would support getting politicians out of the apology business.

Canada’s Chief Apologist, Justin Trudeau, should be the first to be forcibly gagged until he finds the courage to acknowledge his own failings instead of harping on the real or imagined transgressions of previous generations.

As a master apologist, Trudeau has few equals.

A partial list of his official apologies includes, residential schools, Italians mistreated during the Second World War, mismanagement of tuberculosis in the 1940s, turning away the passengers of the MS St. Lois (1939) and the Komagata Maru (1914), the Tsichqot’in hangings in 1864 and the ill treatment of the LGBTQ2 community.

Trudeau’s capacity for apologizing on behalf of Canadians for the actions of previous generations knows no equal. Heck, he has apologized for things that happened before Canada became a country.

Clearly, he is a better apologist than his father.

Pierre Trudeau refused to issue symbolic apologies. Instead of commenting on the policies and actions of the previous government the elder Trudeau believed “it is our purpose to be just in our time.”

The discord between father and son is hardly surprising.

The senior Trudeau was trained in law, the junior in drama.

And drama is surely at the core of the virtue signaling displays of insincerity Justin Trudeau calls apologies.

What better way to demonstrate, for the world to fawn over, the generous, caring and deeply concerned nature of the prime minister’s character, than to issue tearful apologies for the actions of other, less perfect, leaders?

Trudeau has lifted apology to a fine act of theatre, detached from the more base emotions of regret for personal flaws, misjudgments and carelessness.

But, while he is certainly the master, Trudeau is not the only politician to use apology as a political tool.

The catalogue of bald-faced, insincere and vacuous apologies issued by politicians over the last couple of years would rival Hansard for volume and tediousness.

The culprit in this tsunami of insincerity is the unsightly cabal of morally depraved (and otherwise unemployable) political communications experts.

Whenever a story features outrage over the words, deeds, or even thoughts of a politician, the communications gurus offer one solution – issue a full apology and kill the story.

It is the worst possible advice.

In the public domain there exists a dark core of perpetually offended people. These are the poor souls who wait for any hint of offence to their sensibilities in order to attack with great vengeance.

The insincere political apology is the wind in their sails.

The better response to those who enjoy being offended (or who employ indignation as a political tool) is something along the lines of fuddle-duddle.

Blanket apologies for real or imagined slights are worse than meaningless. They put proved to the notion that politics is just bad drama for ugly actors.

There are, of course, times in every life when, because of a momentary lapse in judgment, ignorance or simply carelessness, offence is given unintentionally.

Sometimes being found offensive can rouse reflection on the underlying flaw, recognition of the damage done and real regret.

But that sort of thoughtful reflection has no place in the world of political apology, where drama and expediency rule.

So, in a desperate effort to save what little remains of grace and dignity, the political apology should be forever banned (along with a few of the communications gurus).

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