BURST
While most Canadians still know very little about the 1985 Air India bombing, two-thirds say they support efforts to increase awareness about the country’s deadliest act of terrorism.
New polling from the non-profit Angus Reid institute says fewer than one in five Canadians is able to identify the Air India bombing as Canada’s worst mass murder.
Forty years ago today, a B.C.-made suitcase bomb exploded on Air India Flight 182 , killing all 329 aboard. Another B.C. bomb blew up at Japan’s Narita Airport, killing two baggage handlers.
A judicial inquiry and a B.C. Supreme Court judge concluded the pro-Khalistan Babbar Khalsa separatist group and its founder Talwinder Parmar were behind the murder conspiracy. Parmar was killed by Indian police in 1992 before he could be charged. Two of his associates were acquitted in 2005. A third, Inderjit Singh Reyat, was convicted of manslaughter.
Angus Reid found nine per cent of Canadians say they know a lot about the bombings, but a third had never heard of it.
“For the victims’ families, grief and the agony of loss are at this time of year especially, as raw as it was 40 years ago,” Angus Reid president Shachi Kurl said. “What can they possibly take from the lack of awareness of their fellow citizens?”
Half of the respondents said the bombings were never treated as a national tragedy.
Kurl said that “when even 50 per cent of the general population themselves say the attacks were never treated a Canadian tragedy, it can be nothing short of an indictment of our leaders, our educators and ourselves.”
But 66 per cent of respondents say they support Canada implementing information about the tragedy into school curriculums, while even more — 71 per cent — would create an exhibit in the Canadian Museum of History.
Angus Reid conducted the online survey from June 13 to 17 of 1,607 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum.
The sample was weighted to be representative of adults countrywide according to region, gender, age, household income, and education, based on the Canadian census.
About three in ten Canadians correctly answered that no one involved in the terrorist attack was convicted of murder.
Beyond the third who had never heard of the terrorist attack, 29 per cent were unsure if anyone was or wasn’t held responsible.
The survey also asked respondents about whether they felt supporters of the Khalistan separatist movement should attend Air India memorials. Three in five said it was inappropriate for them to attend.