Air India inquiry interim report says Canada wasn’t ready for attack

The Canadian government was not equipped to deal with a devastating terrorist attack like the June 23, 1985 Air India bombing that claimed 329 lives, inquiry Commissioner John Major said in an interim report released Tuesday.
And the overwhelming despair of victims’ families was compounded by a sense that Canada treated them like second-class citizens, says his report, titled The Families Remember.
“It was obvious that in 1985 Canada did not have a response team that could react to such a massive and unexpected attack,” Major said in the report, released while his inquiry into the terrorist bombing and subsequent investigation continues.
Major said he did not want to wait until his full report is completed in the spring to summarize the gut-wrenching testimony he heard from victims’ families when the inquiry began in the fall of 2006.
“The families of the victims of the Air India tragedy have already waited much too long for their stories to be told,” he said.
The report said that while families have been quoted in the media for years, “what was different this time was that the families were invited by this Commission, mandated by the Government of Canada to express their feelings in a formal hearing before a government-appointed Commissioner.”
Most of those who died when the plane was brought down off the coast of Ireland by a B.C.-made bomb were Canadians of Indian origin.
12/12/07 Kim Bolan/Vancouver Sun/Canada.com

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Categories: Air India - International Dec 2007, Foreign Dec 2007, NACIL Dec 2007, Safety Dec 2007