Canada apologises for the Komagata Maru: British Columbia and Harper in 2008, Trudeau in 2016

Who: The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia; Prime Ministers Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau; the councils of Vancouver, under Mayor Kennedy Stewart, and New Westminster; the Descendants of the Komagata Maru Society, formed in 2006 by 15 families; and the Professor Mohan Singh Memorial Foundation, which Wikipedia says lobbied for the 2016 apology.

What: The apologies answer the events of May 1914, when the steamship Komagata Maru, which Sikhs call Guru Nanak Jahaz, reached Vancouver with 376 passengers, most of them Sikh, Muslim and Hindu, and most were refused entry. The ship was escorted out of the harbour on 23 July 1914, and the Prime Minister's speech of 2016 says 19 passengers were killed and many imprisoned when it returned to India. The apologies came in steps.

• 23 May 2008: The British Columbia Legislature passed a motion apologising to the passengers (Canadian Museum for Human Rights; the Descendants Society).
• 3 August 2008: Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologised at the Ghadri Babiyan Da Mela, a festival in Surrey, British Columbia, not in Parliament. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights says many Sikhs there had wanted a more formal apology in the House of Commons; Wikipedia adds that he was booed.
• 18 May 2016: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologised in the House of Commons in Ottawa, in front of descendants of the passengers. He said the government was responsible for the laws that kept the passengers from immigrating peacefully and securely, and apologised for that and for every regrettable consequence that followed. Nimrat Randhawa, a great-great-granddaughter of Gurdit Singh, was photographed with him.
• 18 May 2021: Vancouver City Council apologised for the city's part in turning the passengers away. New Westminster followed on 27 September 2021, after a report found its council's actions in 1914 discriminatory.
• 30 May 2023: Vancouver Council approved Komagata Maru Place as a secondary honorary name for Canada Place, and street signs were unveiled on 9 February 2024 (the Descendants Society).

Where: The British Columbia legislature; a Sikh festival in Surrey; the House of Commons in Ottawa; the councils of Vancouver and New Westminster.

Why it mattered: The Sikh Heritage Museum of Canada notes that it took Canada 102 years to apologise in the House of Commons for the ship's turning away. The Prime Minister's speech said that Canada did not bear sole responsibility for everything that happened, but that it was responsible for the laws that kept the passengers out.