OTTAWA – After rejecting most of the proposed Canada 150 projects in March, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau explained today that the majority of the anniversary budget had already been earmarked for whitewashing the worst parts of Canadian history.

“As Canadians, there’s a lot in our history to be celebrated,” said Trudeau. “But there’s even more that we desperately need to hide.”

So far, Canada 150 organizers have managed to destroy any reference to the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, have purchased tarps for covering up memorials to soldiers Canada conscripted into World War One, and had swept the entire post-1492 Indigenous history under the rug. While this is good progress, Trudeau says there is still a long ways to go.

“Oh God, I just remembered that we didn’t just intern the Japanese, we also sold all their businesses and forced them to relocate,” said Trudeau, sifting through a thick accordion folder labelled ‘Atrocities’. “Not even the US was that terrible.”

For cruelty that is too big to be forgotten, the government plans to convince Canadians that our behaviour wasn’t really that bad. Photoshop artists are altering century-old photos to rebrand the Komagata Maru incident as an around the world cruise, and the nation’s top stonemasons were deployed to France where they’re working to make all the statues on the Vimy Memorial give a thumbs up.

“It’s been a lot of hard work but I think it’s worth it. I can barely remember that we barred Jewish refugees from immigrating during WWII,” said Trudeau. “Oh, and don’t forget to come to the free Canada 150 Arcade Fire concert where all their songs are about how the oilsands aren’t actually that bad.”

At press time, government officials were desperately burning documents about the investigation into the Air India bombing.