Jean Chretien, prime minister of Canada, apologized to the IOC Friday for racially insensitive remarks by Toronto mayor Mel Lastman.
Chretien said, “Canada is the land which hosts 300,000 new immigrants every year and we receive them from all corners of the earth. Toronto is the most multicultural city throughout the world.
“The mayor made a mistake, he didn’t express himself well and he apologized most deeply”.
He was responding to a question from IOC member Ibrahim Diallo of Guinea, about the “infringement to the Olympic movement’s universal values of man”.
