New Air India monument erected in Montreal

MONTREAL – On the anniversary of the Air India bombings, Prime Minister Stephen Harper looked both to the past and to the future.

He paid tribute to victims of the 1985 massacre by unveiling a memorial in Montreal, a polished black stone inscribed with the victims’ names.

It was to be the last of four such memorials, following similar ones in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver.

Harper also used the event Thursday to look forward: he announced federal funding for a five-year counter-terrorism project.

The Kanishka project will support a wide range of initiatives designed to increase anti-terrorism knowledge — including conferences, publications and major research projects.

The prime minister said it took far too long for policy-makers to draw lessons from the tragedy, in which 331 people died.

“And one of those lessons is that information is an important tool in the struggle against terrorism,” he said.

“We need to know as much as we can about terrorists, their tactics and the best solutions to protect people.”

The $10 million project is named after Kanishka, a powerful emperor nearly 2,000 years ago; the plane bombed while making Air India’s flight 182 carried his name.

Harper said the project would engage “Canada’s best and brightest minds” and help build the knowledge base needed to effectively counter terrorism.

The announcement brought polite applause from the audience, which included family members who had lost loved ones in the worst mass murder in Canadian history.

Dr. Bal Gupta, head of the Air India Victims’ Families Association, said his wife was among those “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The couple and their two sons were on a waiting list for the flight and, at the last minute, a seat became available.

Gupta, 72, says they decided his wife would take it and the others would follow later. Twelve hours later, he was left a single parent.

He says each family has learned to live with the pain in its own way.

“It may not come out in the open but we remember the near, dear ones whom we lost,” Gupta said.

“The couple who lost all their children — they are living the twilight years of their life remembering their children every day.”

Harper said the 26th anniversary of the bombings was a day for all Canadians to remember the worst terrorist attack in this country’s history.

The memorial unveiling, and Kanishka announcement, were made on the National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism — an event proclaimed by the federal government and first observed on June 23, 2005.

“Terrorism has not and will not undermine our way of life,” Harper said in a written statement.

“Our society remains resilient because of the basic values that bind us and make us stronger – freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. . .

“The memory of the victims and the pain of their families strengthen our resolve to fight criminals and terrorists at home and abroad.”

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