The search for adult life in Ottawa continues. One reaction to the embarrassing parliamentary standing ovation for an old man who may not actually have been a Nazi but who did fight on the Nazi side in World War II was to try to expunge it from history, as a minister of the crown actually proposed, apparently seriously.

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That’s as naive as much of the rest of the government’s plan to control the internet. The tape is out there on YouTube, and it will be hard to get back, especially given its usefulness to Russian propagandists. Though it’s 58 minutes long, incidentally, Zelenskyy talks for only 20 minutes. The rest is the prime minister and the speakers of the Commons and Senate basking in the reflected glory of this truly remarkable man. Even before the ovation for the supposed Ukrainian freedom fighter, it’s more than a little embarrassing how pleased everybody clearly is with themselves. (The Speaker, by the way, tells how he has become good friends with his Ukrainian counterpart thanks to the “Speakers Summit.” There is such a thing, apparently. In fact, its ninth instalment takes place in India this month. No doubt we help pay for it.)

Almost as silly as the Orwellian memory hole gambit were the demands for an investigation. “We need to know what went wrong and who’s responsible!” Who was responsible was obvious. The Speaker was and he’s done the honourable thing, though it would have been more honourable had he done it right away and without consulting the political parties. I’m betting whoever the new speaker is will be asking hard questions of staff and making sure anyone his or her office honours in future doesn’t have skeletons in their closet or on the web. Personally, the only detail I’d like to know is what, if any, consequences there are for any tenured civil servants who may have been involved. You’d hope a cut in their bonuses, at least.

The unexamined life is not worth living, Socrates supposedly said. Our modern version of that axiom seems to be: the unexamined moment is not worth living. People are forever demanding public inquiries to examine in-depth even the smallest incidents. Such inquiries are usually expensive, ponderous and time-consuming (this last a feature that often persuades governments to go along with them). An old Ottawa hand used to say that in a choice between conspiracy and cock-up, go for the cock-up every time. If anyone can make “credible allegations” there is a Russian mole in the Speaker’s office, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who’s already running an investigation of foreign interference in our democracy, can look into it. 

The usual criticism of governments is that they’re obsessed with the present. The next election does always loom. But our current federal government seems obsessed — no other word is appropriate — with 2050, what by usual human standards is the far future. All of Ottawa’s policy bends toward achieving net zero by then (except the policy of flying Commons speakers all the way to India to befriend other speakers and engage in important chat about, you guessed it, climate change). 

In fact, it might be good if governments spent more time on the past — not sanitizing it or condemning the moral myopia of everyone who inhabited it but rather acquainting themselves and the rest of us via the schools with what actually happened during it. What happened on June 22, 1941 — Hitler invaded Russia, his friend since August 1939, turning it instantly into our ally — should really be familiar to Canadians. From that day anyone fighting Russians was not on our side, however improbable our sudden friendship with Stalin. (“If Hitler invaded Hell,” said lifelong anti-Communist Winston Churchill, “I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”) That little bit of what should still be part of our common knowledge should have rung alarm bells in the Speaker’s Office. 

On the other hand, should we now, through the vehicle of an extradition investigation, try to determine exactly what the supposed freedom fighter who has caused us such embarrassment was doing from 1942 to 1945, 80 years ago, when he was in his late teens? It will be very tempting to assuage our embarrassment by turning him over to Polish justice, should they ask for him. There he would almost certainly spend most of what remains of his life in the dock, even if he is ultimately cleared. The one thing we know for sure about him is that he is soon to meet his end and maybe his Maker (depending on your belief about such things). Anyone whose parents lived into their late nineties is likely to think the statute of limitations should now fall even on history’s greatest crime. 

“Is this something Canada can get past?” the doyenne of Ottawa political correspondents asked her At Issue panel this week (at 9:24 on the tape). Yes, everything that happens in Ottawa is supremely important, but could we not have a little perspective? Canada has got through two world wars, two referenda on separation, various economic crises, even an inflation or two. We will get past this, too. Possibly by next week, in fact, given the half-life of media focus these days — though no doubt the jokes about us will continue, needling that will actually be good for our chronically over-inflated self-esteem.