Governmental Apologies

In my opinion, governmental apologies are an important step in helping communities and our country heal and in making it clear that we have learned lessons from our mistakes of the past. To ignore grievous hurts that were done in the name of the collective Canada divides our country, placing one group on one side of an open wound and the other group on the other side.
Consider the systematic abuse of aborignal children by the church run residential schools, the incarsaration of our Asian communities during WW2 and the errors made in the Air India bombing.
No, current Canadians did not perpetrate the offenses in most cases but until and unless we collectively (and that is through our governmental leaders) say 'we get it' and 'we grieve with you for this injury' the offended or injured parties never really know that it is over and will not happen again.
If the people of South Africa can forgive each other for apartheid and the terrible things inflicted upon each other by bringing them to light and allowing living perpetrators to ask for and recieve forgiveness - we should follow their lead. We need to take this out of the realm of only monetary compensation and put a human face on the reparations. As human beings we need that admission and reduction in threat that comes with an apology and the balm that comes of knowing that someone acknowledges that the events were wrong.
In this matter, I stand behind and with Steven Harper as he tells my fellow Canadians that we truly grieve for what they have experienced, that we do care about what happened to them and that we  will do better in the future.