The Air India Tragedy: Finally Canada Cares

Taking ownership of the tragedy, even if we did so far too late, demonstrates that Canada is becoming both more inclusive and more aware of threats to our security.

Behind the headlines about the release of former Supreme Court Justice John Major’s report on the Air India bombings is a cultural assumption of significant importance – that this indeed was a Canadian tragedy. All 329 people aboard Air India Flight 182 died when the passenger jet exploded over Ireland on that fateful June day in 1985; the majority were Canadian citizens.

Back in 1985, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney called Rajiv Gandhi, India’s head of state, to express his condolences. As insensitive and ignorant as Mulroney may have been, his action was unfortunately illustrative of the wider Canadian view at the time. Air India was not our airline, the radical Sikh ideology that inspired the attack was not directed at us, and media reports did not focus on the grief and loss of Canadian families. Michael Byers put it bluntly and accurately when he was quoted in the Globe and Mail, arguing for compensation for the victims’ families because the tragedy “did not resonate as deeply as it should have with Canadians.”

Whether or not Canadians should pay as an act of collective contrition is debatable, but a lot has changed in 25 years. Major’s report openly acknowledges that the Air India disaster “was the largest mass murder in Canadian history.” And although Air India was not our airline, the report acknowledged and condemned our security and intelligence officials for not only ignoring warnings of the impending attacks, but allowing institutional tunnel vision and bureaucratic turf wars to impede the original investigations. More disturbing is the fact that the idea of a Sikh homeland – cultivated by separatist terrorists involved in Babbar Khalsa bent on vengeance and a Sorelian fantasy of political success through violence – is very much a “home-grown” Canadian problem.

The changing Canadian reaction to Air India has been a litmus test in two crucial respects. First, Canadians have collectively and profoundly altered their sense of nationhood to recognize themselves as citizens in a multiculturally rich and diverse society. Our ownership of the tragedy, even though far too late, is a clear demonstration of shifting conceptions of self-definition and inclusion.

Second, long before 9-11, the atrocity should have sent alarm bells ringing as to the ongoing and persistent threat of terrorism in an increasingly globally networked world. In 1924, Leader of the Government in the Senate Raoul Dandurand suggested to the League of Nations that Canadians were fortunate to live in a “fire-proof house” that was “far from flammable materials.” If that statement was ever true (and the Second World War demonstrated it was not), then it certainly holds little credibility now. Air India demonstrates how seriously we must take the security challenges evident today – not because we live in the post-9-11 world, but because we live in the post-Air India world.

Sadly, it took the fallout from 9-11, more than a decade of bungling, a failed court case against the alleged Air India masterminds, and several government inquiries to shake Canadians out of their complacency and recognize the loss of Canadian lives as a result of a Canadian plot and the failure of Canadian officials. Surely given the past successes of transnational terrorist networks that find shelter in this country – from Babbar Khalsa extremists and Tamil Tigers through to the wannabe jihadists tried in Toronto courtrooms for their fantastical conspiracy to explode buildings and behead the prime minister – Major is right to suggest we need a dramatically empowered national security advisor. All Canadians, regardless of their membership in an ethnic minority or their state of origin, deserve no less.