In the last 48 hours, there have four apologies made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the House of Commons. The first one was historically important and all but ignored. The next three are a historical hiccup that got all the attention and blew up Twitter.
Earlier in the day, before the kerfuffle, the fracas, the melee, the Wellington Street Brawl, the Thrilla on the Hilla, the House saw the best of Trudeau and his fellow MPs.
"Mr. Speaker, today I rise in this House to offer an apology on behalf of the government of Canada for our role in the Komagata Maru incident," he said.
In the public gallery, Premier Christy Clark and about 100 Indo-Canadians from B.C. celebrated those words with a standing ovation.
The 355 mostly Sikh passengers from Punjab aboard the Komagata Maru were not allowed to set foot in Vancouver due to racist immigration laws targetting Asians.
On July 23, 1914, the vessel was ordered to return to India, escorted out of Canadians waters by a navy ship.
Trudeau went on to acknowledge Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.
"A century ago, the minister's family might well have been turned away from Canada," Trudeau gravely stated. "Today, the minister is an essential member of this government and sits beside us, here, in this House."
Every member of the House, on both sides of the political aisle, as well as those in the gallery, rose to their feet to applaud that fact.
This is 21st century Canada at its best, where the country's multicultural identity is celebrated and sincere regret for past wrongs against specific groups are expressed as part of a pledge never to tolerate such discrimination ever again. Sadly, #elbowgate has overshadowed everything.
Trudeau was wrong to march across the floor, push his way through a throng of NDP MPs, instructing them to "get the fuck out of my way," grab Conservative MP and Opposition whip Gord Brown by the arm and pull him towards his seat in the House, elbowing NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau in the chest in the process.
His first apology, delivered shortly after the incident, was huffy and annoyed, utterly insincere. He just wanted the whole thing to go away.
His apologies the next morning were much better, delivered remorsefully.
He not only apologized to the two MPs directly affected, he also apologized to all the other Members of Parliament for his unacceptable behavior and to the Speaker of the House for disrupting the proceedings.
It is the Speaker's job, not the prime minister's, to maintain order and instruct members to return to their seats to get back to work.
Trudeau is also lucky.
If Brown had reacted with the same short temper as Trudeau, Brown would have stopped in his tracks, forcefully pushed the prime minister's hand away and used colourful language to explain where that hand would be unceremoniously installed the next time it was applied uninvited.
Bedlam would likely have followed but that still pales to what would have happened if Trudeau had grabbed a female MP that way.
The gender of either the individual being grabbed or the person doing the grabbing shouldn't matter in 2016 but of course it does. "What kind of man elbows a woman?" NDP Leader Tom Mulcair was heard shrieking.
"It's pathetic! You're pathetic!"
And so the prime minister was forced to sheepishly say sorry three times for his short temper, foul mouth, overzealous hand and sharp elbow, in contrast to the one apology, offered more than a century later, for blatant government racism.
The other issue overshadowed by #elbowgate was the reason Trudeau, Mulcair and the other MPs were in the House in the first place.
If passed, the assisted dying legislation will also mark a historical turning point in Canadian history. Tensions were already high as a result but that is no excuse for Trudeau's words and actions or for Mulcair's response.
In the midst of this nonsense, the National Post's Andrew Coyne offered up a poetic tweet on Wednesday night that should serve as the epitaph on #elbowgate:
Madly he crossed, and madly
Took hold of Brown, and sadly
Chanced to elbow her badly.
Shall we revile him? Gladly.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
