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Hello, I'm Patrick Martin, Comment Editor of The Globe and Mail, and This is GlobeSalon.
Today, we welcome readers to a new feature on globeandmail.com: Whenever major news developments or burning issues arise, we have gathered an impressive list of commentators to join us in discussion, salon-style — as if we've invited these people into our living room to discuss pivotal events.
There are about two dozen "salonistas" and you can read the lineup and see their biographies and pictures here.
Not all of them will join us every time. Today, we'll be joined by historian Margaret MacMillan, now at St. Antony's College at Oxford; by pollster and author Michael Adams; CAW economist and new author Jim Stanford; Christian broadcaster Lorna Dueck; former PQ cabinet minister Joseph Facal; Michael Higgins, president of St Thomas University in Fredericton and noted scholar on the Vatican; former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney and former ambassador Norman Spector: author William Johnson, a past president of Alliance Quebec; Halifax lawyer and former Trudeau adviser Brian Flemming; Nobel laureate and science advocate John Polanyi; Globe and Mail columnist Marcus Gee and more.
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On other occasions, we'll be joined by the likes of Naomi Klein, Preston Manning, Mark Kingwell and Lysiane Gagnon.
This is not a comprehensive gathering representative of absolutely all Canadians, but our own subjective selection of people we believe our readers would like to hear from. We will learn and adjust as we go on, for this is a new experience for all of us.
But today, our topic is the Prime Minister's apology yesterday, on behalf of all Canadians, to aboriginal Canadians.
Yesterday, we asked our salonistas to view Stephen Harper's speech and tell us:
What do you think of this apology? Is it as "historic" as some people say?
What do think of apologies in general? In other countries? What do they achieve?
Is this part of a national trend to reasonable accommodation v. assimilation? Is this a good thing?
Is there a place for assimilation?
Editor's Note: In keeping with the nature of this discussion, we will be fully moderating reader comments to ensure the highest level of debate. We will be strictly enforcing our written guidelines on comments. Please "Join the Conversation" but please do so in the spirit we hope to create for the GlobeSalon.
Now, we'll hear their responses. The debate will continue throughout the day. Please check back frequently for the latest updates.
First to Margaret MacMillan in Oxford, who's had a few hours headstart on the rest of us:
Margaret MacMillan: Patrick, I had a chance to watch the prime minister's apology for the residential schools and the subsequent speeches. I wish I were in Canada to take part in a moving moment in Canadian history. I hope, as I am sure almost all Canadians do, that as a society we can collectively start to tackle the problems that so many aboriginal communities face.
But, please, let the apology not become an icon, something that we pull out from time to time and admire and then put away again. Let it not be something that makes us feel good about ourselves so that we can avoid thinking about the things that should shame us.
Apologies are a fashion today, and on the whole a good one. This past February, the Australian government finally said sorry for the decades-long practice of seizing its Aboriginal children from their families and giving them to white families to be brought up "white."
Apologies are good both for those who are admitting their past sins and those who receive them. Accepting the past, as the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission showed, is an important step towards moving into the future. But words are cheap if they are not preceded by serious thought and followed by serious action.
What did it really do when Tony Blair apologized for the Irish potato famine? Or when the descendant of the notorious Elizabethan Sir John Hawkins apologized for slavery? Are such apologies anything more than easy sentimentality? And what do apologies mean when they are not accompanied by any significant acts of restitution? Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said "sorry," but significantly did not explain what his government was going to do about the lot of present-day Aboriginals.
