Canada spends $55,000 to fix calendar error about Air India

Vancouver: B.C. is spending thousands of dollars on stickers for high school students to clarify information about the Air India bombing case that was printed on calendars distributed in schools last year to mark the province's 150th anniversary.
Principals are being asked this week to hand deliver the stickers to Grade 11 and 12 students so they can take them home and affix them over an Oct. 27 historical note on the calendar about the arrest in 2000 of two suspects in the Air India bombing - Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri.
The stickers state that the two men were tried and found not guilty on all charges in March 2005.
The Education Ministry even wants principals to mail the stickers to students who graduated in June so they, too, can affix them to their calendars. The government is offering to pay the schools $1 per graduate to cover mailing costs.
A ministry spokesman said the total cost of distributing the stickers will be $55,000, adding that the stickers are being distributed to correct erroneous information and not because of threatened legal action against the ministry.
The calendars were produced by Historica Foundation, a national charity that encourages the teaching of Canadian history. The organization wouldn't comment on the decision to correct the calendars, but sent The Vancouver Sun a copy of its apology to Malik for its failure to include information about the acquittals.
The request to deliver the stickers was not well-received in schools.
"It's almost laughable," said Dennis deGroot, principal at Fraser Valley Christian High School in Surrey. He said it would be a waste of time for him to visit classrooms handing out stickers to students, knowing full well that few - if any - would take them home and paste them on the calendar.
He's not sure how many students in his school actually took home the calendars, which he described as beautiful.
Historica produced the calendars and paid for the corrective stickers, but since schools distributed the calendars they are also distributing the stickers.
01/10/08 Janet Steffenhagen/Vancouver Sun

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Categories: Air India - International Oct 2008, Foreign Oct 2008, NACIL Oct 2008, Safety Aug 2008