38 years after Air India bombings, 89% of Canadians in the dark about terrorist attack: study

Has Canada forgotten the Air India bombing? Susheel Gupta, who's mother died in the Air India bombing, says Canada has failed to memorialize the 1985 terrorist attack.

As Canada marks the 38th anniversary of the deadliest terrorist incident in the country’s history, a new study shows most citizens don’t know about the Air India bombings.

Ahead of the National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism, which has been marked on June 23 since 2005, the Angus Reid Institute released findings, which show nine-in-10 Canadians reported having little to no knowledge about the attack.

In a statement Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged the 329 people who died, including 280 Canadians, when a bomb exploded on Air India Flight 182, which was travelling from Montreal to London.

A second bomb targeting another Air India Flight was detonated that day, but not before killing two baggage handlers at the Narita International Airport.

“This remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Canadian history,” Trudeau’s statement reads.

However, the Angus Reid study found only one-in-five citizens correctly identified the bombing as one of the worst acts of mass murder in Canadian history.

When researchers asked participants how much they know about the bombs, which were allegedly planted by extremists advocating for a separate Sikh state in India’s Pubjab, 61 per cent of said they knew little, while 28 per cent said they knew nothing.

“In British Columbia, where the conspiracy to commit the bombings was hatched, and Ontario, where many of the victims lived, awareness is higher, but fewer than one-in-six in each province say they know a lot about the attack,” researchers wrote.

B.C. Premier David Eby released a statement Friday, reminding people to pause and reflect on the tragedy.

“This cowardly act forever changed the lives of countless friends and family members. The trauma from acts of terrorism last long after the events,” Eby wrote.

Angus Reid’s study suggests the attack has had little impact on people who were born after the Air India bombings.

The findings show 58 per cent of people aged 35 years old and younger had never even heard of the mass killing.

That means only one in 10 respondents reported knowing a lot about what happened and the aftermath.

Of those in the know, only 34 per cent correctly indicated that those responsible for the attack were not convicted of murder in court.

Inderjit Singh Reyat was arrested and charged for manslaughter for his role in constructing the bomb, and was released from prison after serving his 30 year sentence.

The man believed to have led the conspiracy to commit the attack, Talwinder Singh Parmar, was killed by Punjab police in 1992.

Two other key suspects were acquitted by a B.C. supreme court judge in 2005, but both men were killed in Surrey, in 1998 and 2022 respectively.

Among the Canadians with knowledge of the terrorist attack, the study found 42 per cent believe their country has not done enough to remember the victims.

“It is worth noting that it took 22 years before the victims were recognized with formal memorials in Canada, built in Toronto and Vancouver in 2007,” the report reads.

Schaci Kurl, the president of Angus Reid Institute, told CTV News that the study did not explore the angle of race when it came to examining Canadian awareness of the Air India bombings.

However, she recommends that Canadians read the 2010 report that resulted from a public inquiry into the terrorist attack and its aftermath, which acknowledges the suggestion that racism played into the federal government’s response.

The report, which was penned by retired supreme court justice John Major, concludes the government’s attitude towards the families of the victims was “callous,” raising questions as to whether the response would have been different had most of the victims of the bombing been Canadians who were white.

“The Commission concludes that both the government and the Canadian public were slow to recognize the bombing of Flight 182 as a Canadian issue,” the report reads.

“This reaction was no doubt associated with the fact that the supposed motive for the bombing was tied to alleged grievances rooted in India and Indian politics. Nevertheless, the fact that the plot was hatched and executed in Canada and that the majority of victims were Canadian citizens did not seem to have mad e a sufficient impression to weave this event into our shared national experience.”

In her own op-ed for the Ottawa Citizen, Kurl called on Canadians to “step up.”

“The politicians will only ever offer empty plaudits, nothing more,” Kurl wrote, adding that the victims’ families are tired of fighting and being ignored.

“It is not for them to do the emotional work and educate us anymore. Instead, they deserve the dignity and respect of us making the conscious choice to do it ourselves,” she concluded.