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The allegations levelled against disabilities minister Kent Hehr Tuesday by a group of thalidomide survivors seemed at first, to my mind, almost unbelievable. On their suffering, relative to the old days, Hehr allegedly told the survivors: “Well, you don’t have it so bad. Everyone in Canada has a sob story.” On their shortened life expectancies, he allegedly told them: “So you probably have about 10 years left then now. That’s good news for the Canadian government.”

The rush to judgment on Twitter seemed both confident and immediate. But come on, I thought. How could someone capable of saying something that patently insane to a group of victims — victims who are in a compensation fight with the federal government, no less — have made it in politics for 10 years, in the Alberta legislature and now in Ottawa, without blowing himself up sooner?

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A single misconstrued remark can send a sensitive conversation spiralling hopelessly out of control. Memories formed in fury are even more fallible than the other kinds. This had all the hallmarks of a wild misunderstanding. As such, I expected Hehr would find the most delicate possible way of explaining that he really didn’t say what the thalidomide survivors said he said. Because otherwise — surely to God — the only alternative would be to for him to make way, or be made to make way, for another disabilities minister. If he said anything like what he is alleged to have said, allowing him to stay on would be like appointing Don Cherry to be minister of official bilingualism.