Still obfuscating after all these years

PMPM announced today some funding to try to make up for Canada's treatment of Italian-Canadians during WWII. But it's more notable what Martin left out of his statement:

They were "treated in a manner we know to be offensive," Martin told members of Montreal's Italian community. He said those actions "were motivated by fear and suspicion."

But the prime minister didn't offer an outright apology or financial compensation for survivors as some in the Italian community had wanted.

Now, I can understand not seeing financial compensation as the best possible response this long after the fact. But it takes a special kind of arrogance to "make amends" for treatment based on fear and suspicion without acknowledging that the fear and suspicion had no basis in reality.

Of course, that type of acknowledgement would also force people to evaluate whether the government is equally wrong in its recent actions based on similar principles. And there's obvious reason for Martin and company to avoid that kind of discussion.

But the omission nonetheless makes Martin's public claims something less than genuine, and shows all too clearly that nothing has been learned from past mistakes.