TIM BELFORD

But who are you going to sue?

An interesting article in the paper the other day.

A group representing the Acadians wants an apology for their dispersal back in the eighteenth century.

Since they wouldn't swear allegiance to the Crown, they were thrown off their land and ended up in Louisiana, the Magdalen Islands, Cape Breton, and anywhere else they could hide.

Now, this wasn't a nice thing. No one denies that. But who do they want the apology from?

George the Third is dead. The Canadian government wasn't involved. And you can hardly hold the great-great- great-great-great grandson of Private Bloggins responsible.

Nope, with all due respect, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

But, as they say, you can't kill a guy for trying. Apologies and compensation are the latest rage.

Ever since Japanese Canadians received some recompense for the offensive way they were treated during the last war, restitution has been the rallying cry.

But where does it stop?

Just about every family in this nation was a victim of someone at some point.

As Bill Stripes, being North American merely means your family was thrown out of some of the best countries in Europe.

God help us if this catches on.

The entire population of Cape Breton arrived here as the result of the Highland clearances when the first certified public accountant realized sheep were more profitable than farmers.

The Irish were starved out, Sikhs were kept out, and the Chinese paid a head tax for the privilege of being dynamiters for the CPR -- a job that, needless to say, was often of a temporary nature.

In the First World War, Ukrainians ended up as guests of the Crown.

And German Canadians lost their freedom; their city (Berlin became Kitchener), and often their name.

If you don't believe me just ask Elizabeth of Hanover, the present Queen of England.

The thing that really worries me in all of this is my own family.

We're Anglo-Irish by way of the Norman conquest.

Which means we're the ones expected to do all of the apologizing.

Although I'm sure, somewhere, somebody must have picked on us.