On November 7, 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered a formal apology in the House of Commons. Read an excerpt from his speech:
“Today, I rise in this House to issue a long overdue apology to the Jewish refugees Canada turned away. We apologize to the 907 German Jews aboard the MS St. Louis, as well as their families. We also apologize to others who paid the price of our inaction, whom we doomed to the ultimate horror of the death camps. We used our laws to mask our antisemitism, our antipathy, and our resentment... We contributed to sealing the cruel fates of far too many at places like Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Belzec.
We failed them. And for that, we are sorry. And finally, we apologize to the members of Canada’s Jewish community whose voices were ignored, whose calls went unanswered. We were quick to forget the many ways in which they had helped build this country since its inception.”