On Wednesday, Prime Minister Paul Martin announced the federal government would be spending $2.5 million to acknowledge the injustice done to about 5,000 Ukrainian-Canadians in the First World War when they were interned and placed in forced labour camps between 1914 and 1920.

My father's name is Walter H. Doskoch. His father, my grandfather William (after whom  I'm named), was one of the internees. He was locked up from 1914 until 1919.

My dad passed away in late 2000, but recognition of this injustice was something he aggressively fought for in his latter years.

While Dad was around to see markers established at two campsites, one at Jasper and one in the Okanagan (both of which you really have to search for. We apparently want to publicize historical wrongs, just not too much. It's The Canadian Way), I'm sure he would have appreciated Wednesday's announcement.

But again, the federal government can't bring itself to declaratively say "we're sorry."

And when the new plaques and markers go up, it would be a big step forward to put them where people can see them. Let's not passively-aggressively defeat the purpose of the acknowledgement. Otherwise, we might be doing this all over again with our Muslim brothers and sisters at some unspecified future point in our nation's history.

Here's the Globe and Mail's story  on the announcement. And here's another on Mary Marko, the last known survivor.