Somewhere in the political maze that is Ottawa, there is a door with a sign that says, Community Historical Recognition Program.

It leads to a small office where politicians decide to whom and how to say, sorry.

They have $30 million of your tax dollars for the job.

The official version is that these generous grants will be used to commemorate various shameful incidents in Canadian history.

Some call this program an apology factory.

Others say it is an office designed to secure ethnic votes.

The demands made on this office are hard to deny.

They are rooted in historical wrongs which Canada has acknowledged, and it seems now is the season of apology — and payment — for past misdeeds.

The incidents for which we are to pay include:

The Komagata Maru — This happened in 1914 when the Japanese steamship carrying 376 passengers, mostly Sikh, was not allowed to disembark in Vancouver. At that time the local politicians and populace feared a "brown invasion" would take over jobs in factories, mills and lumber yards. Amid shouts of "Bole So Nihal," or "Blessed is the One," the British Columbia legislative assembly formally apologized for this dark day last week. The Federal government is expected to follow suit and fork out $2.5 million for a Komagata Maru memorial.

The St. Louis — This happened in 1939 when the German transatlantic liner carrying over 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler’s regime was not allowed to drop its passengers off in several countries, including the United States and Canada. The ship was forced to return and hundreds were killed by the Nazis. For that historical anti-Semitic stance, the Tories plan to hand out a grant worth millions soon.

The Chinese Head Tax — More than 80,000 Chinese immigrants were forced to pay a head tax to immigrate between 1885 and 1923. The government said sorry for this last year and recently announced $5 million in grants to commemorate this and other immigration restrictions imposed on Chinese-Canadians.

Surviving Head Tax payers and their spouses are already eligible for a $20,000 settlement.

Ukrainian internment — This month, the government allocated a $10-million grant to the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko. This is for the hardship caused to Eastern Europeans, particularly Ukranian-Canadians who were interned as "enemy aliens" during the First World War.

The sorry money does not include a $350-million healing fund for victims of the native residential school horrors. This comes after billions of dollars in promised restitution payments to be followed by another apology by the government next month.

While the timing — spell: general election — and motivation of these rapid fire expressions of regret by the Tories are questioned by the cynics amongst us, the bigger question is: Are these moneyed apologies getting out of hand?

Every nation over time has committed atrocities which we now look back and shudder at.

Today, we would never tolerate a Komagatu Maru or a Chinese Head Tax because we don’t share the same values.

But we are told time and again that we must pay for the sins of our forefathers.

Saying sorry is the right thing to do, so let’s get the history books rewritten.

Let’s ensure these wrongs are never repeated.

However, institutionalizing redress for historical wrongs will only form a larger queue demanding acts of cash contrition.

It will also fuel political machinery hungry for ethnic votes.