Major Commission reports on the Air India investigation

Who: John Major, a retired Supreme Court of Canada justice, who led the Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of the Bombing of Air India Flight 182; the families of the victims; and the federal agencies it examined, among them the RCMP and CSIS. The Conservative government of Stephen Harper announced the inquiry after it won power in January 2006 (The Canadian Encyclopedia).

What: The acquittals of March 2005 revived the families' call for a public inquiry. In November 2005 Bob Rae, the independent adviser to the Minister of Public Safety, recommended a focused inquiry, not a re-run of the criminal case, on four questions: the threat assessment before 1985, cooperation between CSIS and the RCMP, the problem of turning intelligence into evidence, and aviation security. Wikipedia says the inquiry was announced on 1 May 2006, began that June, and was to examine witness protection in terrorism cases, airport security and CSIS-RCMP cooperation, and to give the families a forum to testify.

On 17 June 2010 Major released a report of about 4,000 pages in five volumes with 64 recommendations. He found that a “cascading series of errors” by government ministries, the RCMP and CSIS allowed the attack to happen (Wikipedia, citing CBC and BBC reports). The Canadian Encyclopedia says he criticised successive governments for treating the victims' relatives as adversaries and recommended an apology and compensation. ThePrint reports that the report found the RCMP treated witnesses with scepticism and that CSIS officers “couldn't distinguish one traditionally attired Sikh from another”. Among the recommendations, the Encyclopedia lists a role for the National Security Advisor in settling quarrels between agencies, a national director of terrorism prosecutions, a coordinator of witness protection in terrorism cases, and wide changes to airport security.

Stephen Harper apologised for the failures of the government's agencies a week after the report, on the 25th anniversary of the bombing, says The Canadian Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, citing the Toronto Star, says that on that anniversary he announced that the government would apologise.

Where: Canada. The inquiry looked at how Canadian agencies handled a plot whose suitcases were checked in at Vancouver International Airport on 22 June 1985, as the 2005 trial judgment records.

Why it mattered: It was the official Canadian account, 25 years on, of how the system failed. The Canadian Encyclopedia says Major found that successive governments had treated the families as adversaries, and his recommendations aimed at agencies that had not shared intelligence or protected witnesses. ThePrint says India's Intelligence Bureau had sent a warning telex on 1 June 1985, three weeks before the bombing.