This was not “Someone Else’s Problem”: Bob Rae’s 2005 Report
- authored by CoHNA Canada Leadership
When Khalistani extremists bombed Air India Flight 182 on June 23, 1985, killing 329 people including 268 Canadians, one of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s first calls was—not to the families of the victims—but to his Indian counterpart Rajiv Gandhi.
This detail, found in declassified documents, highlights how the tragedy was initially framed. Despite the fact that most victims were Canadian citizens, the bombing was largely treated as an Indian matter.
There was no immediate national address, no flags at half-mast, and no formal period of mourning. The families felt their loved ones weren’t recognized as fully Canadian victims.
Read more about the phone call here: What Rajiv Gandhi told Canada PM after A-I blast
Twenty years later, veteran politician and diplomat Bob Rae sought to course correct with his 2005 report, which reframed the bombing as a Canadian catastrophe.
“Let it be said clearly: the bombing of the Air India flight was the result of a conspiracy conceived, planned, and executed in Canada. Most of its victims were Canadians. This is a Canadian catastrophe, whose dimension and meaning must be understood by all Canadians,” Rae wrote.
Read Bob Rae’s report here: Lessons to be learned
Yet Canadians have struggled to accept this catastrophe as their own. Prime Minister Mulroney’s call to Prime Minister Gandhi to condole India’s loss may seem odd in hindsight, but at the time it reflected the broader Canadian sentiment that, “this was someone else’s problem”. Indeed, even today, younger Canadians know next to nothing about the tragedy.
A 2023 report by Angus Reid Institute reveals that nine in ten Canadians have little to no knowledge of the Air India Flight 182 bombing—despite it being the deadliest terrorist attack in Canadian history.
Rae wrote about these issues in his 2017 review of Remembering Air India, an excellent anthology of essays, edited by Chandrima Chakrabarty, Amber Dean, and Angela Failler, which explores the key question: “Why has this terrible disaster been relegated to the very margins of public memory?”
Read Rae’s book review: A Tragedy of Our Own | Literary Review of Canada