A Sham
I was a bit disappointed earlier this week, not because I expected much from the advertised Air India inquiry, but because in the end, it delivered nothing substantial.
The inquiry's terms of reference are very empty and there's an obvious and understandable reason for why that is (I'll get to this later). Still, the fact that the government was as short sighted as it was in drafting the terms of reference is a disappointment.
The terms do not include the investigation into the bombing itself in any meaningful way, nor does it include the behavior of the prosecution. Things such as whether the authorities followed all leads, whether they should have been looking elsewhere when thinking of suspects - all of that will almost certainly not be addressed now.
Around when the government was first sworn in, the Justice Minister said that the inquiry was likely going to focus mainly on the investigation and the prosecution, but because of the backlash from the victim's families, this will no longer happen. Now of course the government should have consulted primarily with the victim's families, but consultation should not have been exclusive to them. The victim's families were naturally close with both the RCMP investigators and also with the prosecution team and so it should be no surprise that they're being shielded from the inquiry's scope; but they shouldn't be. Just because the victim's families believe that the investigators and prosecutors conducted themselves properly does not make it so. The government should have been wiser (and braver) enough to include investigative and prosecutorial mistakes in the inquiry's terms as well.
Instead, the inquiry will focus largely on issues that have already resolved themselves to a large extent. RCMP and CSIS matters, assessing the threat of "Sikh terrorism" (which is dead anyway), and so on are matters that really don't need an inquiry. Even the more substantive question of terrorist financing (did the Air India tragedy really require much financing? No.) and trials might be important questions, but the government does not need an inquiry in order to set policy directions for those matters.
So all in all, a disappointment. A whitewash.
The inquiry's terms of reference are very empty and there's an obvious and understandable reason for why that is (I'll get to this later). Still, the fact that the government was as short sighted as it was in drafting the terms of reference is a disappointment.
The terms do not include the investigation into the bombing itself in any meaningful way, nor does it include the behavior of the prosecution. Things such as whether the authorities followed all leads, whether they should have been looking elsewhere when thinking of suspects - all of that will almost certainly not be addressed now.
Around when the government was first sworn in, the Justice Minister said that the inquiry was likely going to focus mainly on the investigation and the prosecution, but because of the backlash from the victim's families, this will no longer happen. Now of course the government should have consulted primarily with the victim's families, but consultation should not have been exclusive to them. The victim's families were naturally close with both the RCMP investigators and also with the prosecution team and so it should be no surprise that they're being shielded from the inquiry's scope; but they shouldn't be. Just because the victim's families believe that the investigators and prosecutors conducted themselves properly does not make it so. The government should have been wiser (and braver) enough to include investigative and prosecutorial mistakes in the inquiry's terms as well.
Instead, the inquiry will focus largely on issues that have already resolved themselves to a large extent. RCMP and CSIS matters, assessing the threat of "Sikh terrorism" (which is dead anyway), and so on are matters that really don't need an inquiry. Even the more substantive question of terrorist financing (did the Air India tragedy really require much financing? No.) and trials might be important questions, but the government does not need an inquiry in order to set policy directions for those matters.
So all in all, a disappointment. A whitewash.
posted by Japnaam Singh at
8:28 AM
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