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Sorry, but Justin Trudeau likes apologies. He does.

He makes them all the time. Everyone has noticed. The BBC even published a story about The Apologist-In-Chief, asking: “Does Justin Trudeau apologise too much?”

Their answer: Yes, probably. (And, yes, they spelled “apologize” in the Brit way, naturally, with an “s” and not a “z.” Apologies.)

Here’s a partial list of Justin’s apologies. It’s partial, because we literally do not have enough room to publish all of the details about the Liberal leader’s apologies. We’re a tabloid, not an encyclopedia. (Sorry.)

— When Trudeau and his family were caught with their snout deep in the WE Charity trough, Trudeau apologized. “I made a mistake in not recusing myself immediately from the discussions given our family’s history and I’m sincerely sorry about not having done that.”

— When Trudeau and his family were caught with their well-appointed beaks in another trough — the Aga Khan’s lobbyist trough — he was again super contrite for not getting permission from the ethics czar first. “I’m sorry I didn’t, and in the future I will be clearing all my family vacations with the commissioner.”

— When Trudeau and his family were caught lying on the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation — lying about where they were, lying about what they were doing, and lying about where they were doing it (an $18-million oceanfront mansion owned by the wife of one of the alleged tax avoiders identified on the Paradise Papers this week, according to the Journal de Montreal) — he again issued another post facto Act of Contrition: “Travelling on September 30th was a mistake, and I regret it.” He didn’t utter the word “apologize,” notably, but he claimed to have done so in a call with an Indigenous leader: “I apologized for not being there with her and her community for (Truth and Reconciliation) day.”

Do you see the oily, serpentine thread that weaves through all of Trudeau’s dewey-eyed, butter-wouldn’t-melt apologies? Yes: They all involve his family. You know: his multimillionaire family, who rarely seem to resist the temptation to plunder the treasury, or someone else’s bank account. About which Prime Minister Penitential then apologizes — always after getting caught. Never before.

But like we say: Justin Trudeau loves apologies. They turn him on. There was his apology for the Komagata Maru incident, wherein a ship full of mostly Sikhs were turned away from Canada about 100 years ago. Then there was the one he made for elbowing NDP MP Ruth-Ellen Brosseau in her chest during a nasty debate in the House of Commons in 2016.

Then there was the one he made for residential school survivors in Newfoundland and Labrador in November 2017. Four days later, he made another one to LGBT people for what he called “state-sponsored, systematic oppression.”

He apologized to the Tsilhqot’in First Nation for the killings of their chiefs in 1864. In that same year, 2018, he apologized because his Liberal predecessor, Mackenzie King, turned away 900 Jews on the MS St. Louis in 1939, most of whom would go on to be murdered in Nazi death camps.

And so on, and so on. Apologies followed to the Inuit, to the Poundmaker Cree Nation, and on and on. And now, because he made the first Truth and Reconciliation Day a farce, a bad memory.

Here’s the best response to your fetish for apologies that are never, ever, ever accompanied by changes in your behaviour, Justin Trudeau. It comes from Assembly of First Nations National Chief RoseAnne Archibald.

“Hollow apologies will no longer be accepted,” Archibald said. “As national chief, on behalf of all First Nations, I expect concrete action and changed behaviours.”

There you go, Justin Trudeau: Take your apologies and shove them.

Sorry.

— Warren Kinsella was a federal Ministerial Representative to dozens of First Nations across Canada from 2003 to 2015

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Always look for the silver lining, our moms told us. It’s there.

In the case of the Justin Trudeau surf vacation, it’s hard to spot the silver lining. Because the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation wasn’t a good one. At all.

To recap:

• Justin Trudeau and his office bald-faced lied about where he was on Sept. 30. He wasn’t in Ottawa for “meetings,” as they claimed.
• He was on a Challenger jet with his entourage, heading to British Columbia, spewing greenhouse gases that were the equivalent to what an average Canadian family generates in an entire year.
• He and his office said he would be meeting with “residential school survivors.” That was a lie, too. He allegedly made a phone call or two to some Indigenous people. We don’t know who or how many, exactly.
• Trudeau and co. headed to Tofino, which is at the heart of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, a sacred place of profound significance to Indigenous people. Trudeau wasn’t there for any of that, or even to meet briefly with the First Nation. He was there for the surfer’s beach, which he’d been to many times before.
• Oh, and the mansion. Trudeau and his entourage were staying at an $18-million oceanfront estate.

All this, on a day that Trudeau himself created to remember thousands of Indigenous children who had lost their lives at so-called residential schools and then were dropped into unmarked graves.

When the truth emerged — thanks to some outstanding media sleuthing by the Toronto Sun’s Bryan Passifiume, Global News and others — Trudeau’s office disappeared the false statement about his whereabouts.

They also belatedly claimed Trudeau apologized to Tk’emlA0ps Nation Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir. Casimir had previously twice invited Trudeau to spend the first Truth and Reconciliation Day with her people, where the bodies of Indigenous children were discovered, months ago.

Trudeau went to a mansion on a surfing beach instead.

Indigenous leaders reacted as you would expect they would — with shock, with dismay, with outrage. Speaking for many, Assembly of First Nations National Chief RoseAnne Archibald said Trudeau’s after-the-fact apology wasn’t good enough.

Said Archibald: “Hollow apologies will no longer be accepted. As national chief, on behalf of all First Nations, I expect concrete action and changed behaviour.”

But will the behaviour change?

With Trudeau’s cult-like followers, that is unlikely. Initially, they said the scandal wasn’t one. After Trudeau apologized, they did a volte-face and said his apology put an end to the scandal.

What else would one expect from such a cult, which one CNN broadcaster once called “TruAnon?” If they could rationalize racist blackface, allegations about groping a woman, and obstruction of justice, the Tofino scandal would be barely an afterthought.

But what about Trudeau? Did he notice the outrage? Did he — does he — care?

Trudeau famously pays little to no attention to the mainstream news media, so his surfing holiday was likely undisturbed by any of that — save and except a brave Global News crew who tried to question Trudeau on a Tofino beach, and were chased away by taxpayer-funded security goons.

What about the avalanche of anger on social media? There, too, Trudeau doesn’t spend much time. Apart from approving the photos his official photographer uploads to Instagram, Trudeau doesn’t run his own Twitter and Facebook accounts.

So, maybe he doesn’t truly know how angry people are. Perhaps he doesn’t know, either, the damage he did to Canada-Indigenous relations. Those are all dark, dark clouds, as our moms would say.

But here is the silver lining: I don’t think Justin Trudeau wants to do the job anymore. I think he wanted a majority government, didn’t get one, and now he wants out.

I now think, more than ever before, he wants to leave.

And that, my friends, is a real silver lining.

— Warren Kinsella was Jean Chretien’s Special Assistant

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