Canada's response to the Ukrainian air crash tragedy is very different from the way Canadians reacted to the Air India disaster 35 years ago, experts say.
News of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752's destruction and the deaths of all 176 people on board — including 57 Canadians, a number revised downward from 63 on Friday — touched off a nationwide period of public mourning.
On Parliament Hill, provincial legislatures and municipal sites across the country, the Canadian flag was lowered to half-mast. Vigils and memorials are being planned in communities from coast to coast.
That collective outpouring of grief is quite unlike the public's reaction to the Air India disaster 35 years ago, when Flight 182, carrying 329 people — most of them Canadian citizens or permanent residents — was brought down by a bomb attack on June 23, 1985.
Chandrima Chakraborty, a cultural studies professor at McMaster University, said the Air India crash was dismissed as a "foreign tragedy" and met with widespread indifference by the Canadian public. Despite the scale of the tragedy — 82 children were killed — the event did not resonate as deeply with Canadians as PS752's crash in Iran seems to be now, she said.
"It was an Air India plane, (thought to be) primarily Indians, so it must be an Indian tragedy," she said. "That hasn't happened this time."
Chakraborty said this week's crash is being framed as a Canadian tragedy in the media and by the federal government, and Canadians themselves are mourning the victims as fellow citizens.
Brian Mulroney, prime minister at the time of the Air India crash, was criticized for offering condolences to the Indian government rather than to the Canadian families of victims after the disaster.
"Once the government has that kind of gut response, it pushed the bombing to the margins of Canadian public consciousness. It did not result in the outpouring of grief or public mourning that we're seeing now," Chakraborty said.
"Canada's lack of acknowledgement of the Air India loss as Canadian, I think, exacerbated the family's grief of losing family members."
11/01/20 Kathleen Harris/CBC News
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News of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752's destruction and the deaths of all 176 people on board — including 57 Canadians, a number revised downward from 63 on Friday — touched off a nationwide period of public mourning.
On Parliament Hill, provincial legislatures and municipal sites across the country, the Canadian flag was lowered to half-mast. Vigils and memorials are being planned in communities from coast to coast.
That collective outpouring of grief is quite unlike the public's reaction to the Air India disaster 35 years ago, when Flight 182, carrying 329 people — most of them Canadian citizens or permanent residents — was brought down by a bomb attack on June 23, 1985.
Chandrima Chakraborty, a cultural studies professor at McMaster University, said the Air India crash was dismissed as a "foreign tragedy" and met with widespread indifference by the Canadian public. Despite the scale of the tragedy — 82 children were killed — the event did not resonate as deeply with Canadians as PS752's crash in Iran seems to be now, she said.
"It was an Air India plane, (thought to be) primarily Indians, so it must be an Indian tragedy," she said. "That hasn't happened this time."
Chakraborty said this week's crash is being framed as a Canadian tragedy in the media and by the federal government, and Canadians themselves are mourning the victims as fellow citizens.
Brian Mulroney, prime minister at the time of the Air India crash, was criticized for offering condolences to the Indian government rather than to the Canadian families of victims after the disaster.
"Once the government has that kind of gut response, it pushed the bombing to the margins of Canadian public consciousness. It did not result in the outpouring of grief or public mourning that we're seeing now," Chakraborty said.
"Canada's lack of acknowledgement of the Air India loss as Canadian, I think, exacerbated the family's grief of losing family members."
11/01/20 Kathleen Harris/CBC News
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