Sorry isn't always the right word

From earliest childhood it would seem that the hardest words to say are "I'm sorry." Children would never say them if they weren't coached, prompted, nagged and sometimes time-out-ed into it. Conscientious parents know that if they don't ingrain the habit early, they run the risk of enabling their children to grow up as insensitive, conscienceless adults.

Does the same apply to nations? 2010 is the Year of the British Home Child. In a growing list of apologies for Britain's historical crimes -- Tony Blair apologized for the Irish potato famine and slavery -- Gordon Brown is voicing national apologies to the 150,000 British children who were forcibly deported to the colonies between 1618 and 1967. The Catholic Church has apologized to 1,300 migrant children who suffered routine sexual abuse, whippings and near-slave labour at farm schools in Australia between 1930 and 1960.

Canada, which received an overwhelming number of Home Children -- of the 150,000 deportees, 100,000 were sent to Canada between 1869 and 1939 -- is not apologizing.

Who were the Home Children? They were poor children in orphanages or care homes, ranging in age from toddlers to teens -- the average age was eight -- who under the guise of a "welfare" program that promised them sunshine and a healthy life, were shipped off to Canada, Australia and South Africa.

One survivor of the system, an orphan, recalls volunteering to go to Australia in 1947 because, "We were told that there would be 14 hours of sunshine a day, and that we would ride a horse to school."

The reality of course was otherwise. The British House of Commons Health Committee noted in 1998: "Children were placed in large, isolated institutions and often subjected to harsh, sometimes intentionally brutal, regimes of work and discipline, unmodified by any real nurturing or encouragement."

The program was originally conceived of as an efficient strategy for ridding Britain of "undesirables" such as juvenile delinquents. As the 19th century "reform" mentality took hold, other justifications were found. Its proponents argued that children from the slums would be better off in the open air of the colonies.

With the passing of the Empire Settlement Act in 1922, the children were now "Empire Builders" fulfilling a mission to provide "good white stock" to the empire. Once abroad, they were purposefully cut off entirely from their past. They were given new names, told their parents had died and separated from siblings in a "process of depersonalization."

Ruthlessly exploited as labourers, often suffering physical and sexual abuse by the religious institutions charged with their care, they were given minimal education. In Canada the children were mostly assigned to farmers, who would pay the children $1 a day until they were 18. By the early 20th century, most of the children ended up in the care of Christian charity institutions, with the predictable systematic abuses and hardships dominating the historical narrative.

As with the residential schools, the scheme was perceived as a helping hand, not as the human rights crime it became.

The road to hell is always paved with good intentions. The question is: Must we today apologize for the "hell" our forebears' policies paved the way to? And if so, to whom? Yes to residential school survivors; yes to Japanese-Canadians interned in camps during World War Two; no to the Home Children?

On the whole I think retroactive national apologies are a slippery slope, for really there is no end to the in-hindsight dumb ideas previous eras thought were very good ideas. I am sure our own era will not prove to be an exception, and some day men will demand an apology for the many male suicides that can be traced to the lack of shelters for men suffering from systematic domestic violence. Sure, seems crazy now, but in 50 years it won't.

Policymakers in previous eras were not schooled in human psychology; they did not think hard work and spartan environments were bad things for children (builds character!); sexual abuse of children was not on the public radar screen as an acknowledged danger; conditions at home for these children were truly deplorable in any case, so the colonies were perceived as the sole opportunity for them to make something of their lives; and they probably felt that the break with their past would be an advantage in getting on with their lives, not a source of lasting pain.

The fact is, official apologies do bring psychological closure to people whose lives have been blighted by crimes of omission or commission, and I can understand the craving to hear those magic words. But the same magic words often open the door to bids for financial compensation. Thalidomide children were owed an apology (they have gotten one) and lots of money, because the effects of government irresponsibility on every individual involved are tangible and quantifiable.

The same cannot be said for the Chinese head tax, the failure to permit Jewish refugees to enter Canada from 1933 to 1945, the Japanese internment camps -- and the Home Children, many of whom, despite the precipitating trauma, ended up having better lives in Canada and Australia than they could have expected in England.

The memorable tag line to the film Love Story was, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." That's as good a guideline as any. The Holocaust? Not about "love." Home Children? Good intentions. In good intentions-bad consequence cases, the best apology is a promise that those particular mistakes will not be made by this or future governments. Jason Kenney made the right call.

bkay@videotron.ca