Last week the city of Philadelphia issued an apology to Jackie Robinson. After breaking the colour barrier in major league baseball in 1947, Mr. Robinson endured racist taunts, particularly from Philadelphians. In one game the Phillies' manager shouted at Mr. Robinson to "go back to the cotton fields."

Mr. Robinson played the 1946 season in AAA with the Montreal Royals. No apology has been necessary from that city. Montreal treated Mr. Robinson with warmth and respect. It's kind of strange that Philadelphia waited so long to express its regret. Mr. Robinson has been dead for 44 years. But decades-later apologies from governing bodies are increasingly common.

Canada has become one of the major forgiveness seekers for sins of the ancestors. Ottawa has made apologies for residential schools, the Chinese head tax, Japanese internment and other shameful deeds.

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We were at it again last week for something that happened 102 years ago on the British Columbia coast. Our Prime Minister said he would offer a full apology to our Sikh population for a 1914 immigration department decision to turn back a boat, the Komagata Maru, with several hundred Sikhs aboard. Nineteen passengers were subsequently killed in skirmishes with the British when the ship went on to Calcutta.

This apology is small fare compared to the one likely coming next. As was revealed recently, Ottawa is looking into making a sweeping apology to hundreds, possibly thousands of government officials who lost their jobs or who faced discrimination in the workplace as a result of being gay.

The apology, not yet certain but likely, would cover the entire Cold War period from the late 1940s to the 1990s. The Justice Department is co-ordinating an investigation involving several departments. Bureaucrats are thus far having difficulty determining specific numbers.

The review, which extends beyond government employees, is a potential powder keg. These kinds of apologies can be seen as admissions of guilt, triggering demands for compensation. Promising careers were no doubt ruined in what amounted to witch hunts. Many who are still around could find out for the first time the extent to which they were maltreated. There will be pressure for the government to release all the details of its findings. Provincial governments will likely be pressured by gay communities to follow Ottawa's lead.

It's known that the government used spies and hired informants to compile a list of 9,000 suspected homosexuals in the Ottawa area alone. Gay people were thought to be easy prey for blackmail by foreign agents. The government hired Robert Frank Wake, the chairman of Carleton University's psychology department, to develop a test to determine one's sexual orientation. He devised an operation which came to be known derisively as "the fruit machine." Some Carleton students are demanding the university issue an apology. The university is studying the matter.

Canada has been a leader among countries in recognizing gay rights. The government of Pierre Trudeau legalized homosexual acts between consenting adults in 1969. Canada was among the first countries to legalize gay marriage. It is in the forefront with its recent decision to pardon men who were imprisoned because they were gay prior to when the law was changed. The broader apology now being considered would also be ahead of the curve.

The Conservatives said no to the idea of an apology. But pressure from the gay community as well as reports by John Ibbitson in this newspaper have helped prompt the Trudeau government to take up the matter.

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The issue is too serious for it not to act. In respect to national apologies, there is the legitimate question of where do they stop? How many more cases of racial prejudice, such as the one involving the Sikh boat, can be dug up from our history that call for an apology?

Dissenters raise the argument that on cases such as homosexual abuse, actions viewed as reprehensible today were only consistent with the social values of the times.

That may well be the case. But it doesn't make such actions right. Which is why an apology or whatever redress is possible is now the appropriate course for our government to take.