Harper's apology to Canada's aboriginal peoples

"Sympathy without relief," runs an old Scots saying, "is like mustard without beef."

A very well-scripted apology it was, delivered by the fellow whose government

• tore up the Kelowna Accord, ignored Parliament's vote to reinstate it, and offered aboriginal people a fraction of what the deal called for;
  
  
• refused fast-track payments to the very people to whom he has now apologized;
  
  
• continues the Liberal malign neglect of the Lubicon Cree;
  
  
• keeps Maurice Vellacott in his caucus--the Conservative MP who defended the Saskatoon cops who carried out the "starlight tour" that took Darrell Night out for a "starlight tour," like the one that killed Neil Stonechild*;
  
  
• to our international shame, voted against the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and indeed made every effort to scuttle it.

But how timely this apology is! Why, one of these days there might actually be an election: Operation Outreach continues. And in this glaringly obvious context, what a disgraceful example of form without substance that apology was. What empty words. What hollow rhetoric.

Gallons of mustard, in fact. But where's the beef, Mr. Harper?

UPDATE: And here's how to poison the mustard:

Now along with this apology comes another $4 billion in compensation for those who partook in the residential schools over those years. Now, you know, some of us are starting to ask, ‘Are we really getting value for all of this money, and is more money really going to solve the problem?

Thanks, Pierre.

(H/t Peterborough Politics)

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*Commenter Tim points out that it was Darrell Night, not Neil Stonechild, who was the victim of the officers in question. In fact, it was because Night survived that the whole ugly story of police practices in Saskatoon came to public attention. Correction made, with new links.