Sheila Copps, Sun Media
With the bombshells being dropped on the Air India inquiry, the biggest question is why the answers have taken so long.
The reality is that successive governments resisted a real examination of the most massive loss of Canadian life in history.
Would this stonewalling have happened if the majority of Air India passengers had been white? Would police and politicians have minimized the gravity of the situation?
The answer is no. As a country, we like to consider ourselves as colour blind and take pride in the harmony in cultural diversity of Canada.
REVELATIONS
But the stunning revelations from the Air India inquiry should leave all of us with a sense of acute dismay. Why has it taken 22 years for Canadian citizens to get to the bottom of a complete breakdown in justice. From the police to the political class, from the courts to the media, we swept this tragedy from our collective memories too quickly.
As an opposition member, I supported an inquiry, but when I joined the government, I was only too happy to wait until the outcome of the criminal trials. Successive Conservative and Liberal governments claimed nothing could be done until the course of justice had been exhausted.
Government and police organizations feared an inquiry would expose major flaws in the system. Those flaws are now being outlined in excruciating detail. With little pressure outside the Air India families, it was easier to leave it up to the courts.
But one of the most expensive trials in Canadian history yielded no convictions so the families again asked the politicians to get the answers.
The Liberals, who had long promised action, back-pedalled when Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan publicly stated she could not see the benefit of a public inquiry. That comment caused an uproar among families so the Grits relented and named former Ontario premier Bob Rae as an “eminent person” to determine whether an inquiry was necessary. Most of Rae’s information seeking was done in private and did little to assuage the families’ plea for information.
Rae’s November 2005 report set the stage for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to launch a public inquiry last May. Rae cited a number of unanswered questions but no one expected the inquiry to produce the barrage of new revelations, which paints a dismal picture of failure in the Canadian political and legal systems.
No information will bring their loved ones back but at least the families finally have a chance to discover what went wrong.
Why did the police and Canadian intelligence organizations ignore the persistent and growing concern about the possibility of a bomb on a specific weekend?
Why did authorities, including key government intelligence officers, misread or downplay information about a potential bomb threat?
The startling revelation of Ontario lieutenant governor James Bartleman last week begged a number of questions. Why did Bartleman wait almost 22 years to reveal his incredible experience? Who was the other government official he cited and why did no one act?
Whatever the reasons, Bartleman’s courageous testimony prompted others to come forward. Subsequent witnesses reinforced the same theme. From the repeated communication breakdowns between organizations to the absence of airport security, Air India has all the makings of Canada’s own 9/11. A gulf between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, an absolute chasm between the Canadian security establishment and the department of Foreign Affairs, and so on.
It would be funny if it weren’t so heart-rending to learn that Canada’s five bomb-sniffing dogs were on a cross-country training session the day of the attack.
For more than two decades, hundreds of Canadians lost wives, husbands, sons and daughters have lived in an information vacuum. All they have sought is an answer to the simple question, “What happened?”
Recent revelations must be doubly painful to those who have suffered a private hell for years. The truth must hurt more than they can bear. The inquiry is confirming their worst fears.
Outrage won’t bring those plane crash victims back. At least the inquiry is finally providing some of the answers to questions that Canadians have been seeking for 22 years. Those answers should prompt more questions for us all.
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