The Air India Inquiry Begins

Commissioner John Major announced Air India Inquiry was opened this morning; CTV has posted two segments of the press conference on its website.

The Commissioner has set the terms for the inquiry, but must first establish which parties will have legal standing. The submission process begins today, with hearings occurring in July and testimony to begin in September. In the press conference, Major alludes to an information kit that will contain more details.

The first two questions; of the extent of the threat of Sikh terrorism and the inter-departmental disconnects between CSIS and the RCMP as well as whether the legislative or policy changes are needed to resolves them have been resolved, but the rest remain. Of particular interest to our recent discussions, as Mike noted in his earlier discussion of security certificates, are the very problematic relationship between surveillance evidence and criminal proceedings. Perhaps one of the most widely publicized is Major’s authority to initiate a full review of the system and determine: “whether the unique challenges presented by the prosecution of terrorism cases are adequately addressed by existing practices or legislation and, if not, the changes in practice or legislation that are required to address these challenges, in particular whether there is merit in having terrorism cases heard by a panel of three judges.” Major is also given discretion to weigh however he feels appropriate the series of reports and commissions into the event.

The criminal aspects are of particular interest, as Mike pointed out eariler, in the wake of the certificate hearings. They grappled with a far less monolithic security apparatus, and a more nebulous philosophy than I believe most reports would suggest. If the hearings on this subject are indeed public, it could establish at least a 21 year lineage for the current discourses on ‘balance’.

Major also made a statement regarding perception, that an early tendency to not to consider Air India a ‘Canadian tragedy’ because of foreign political motivation may have contributed to the investigation’s failure.

The inquiry itself was announced by Steven Harper pursuant to the Lessons to be Learned report that was issued in November. The three stages show a slight expansion of the goals of the inquiry, notably the progression from the lessons report scrutiny of the evidence and prosecution process to the specific question of the three judge tribunal. It would be interesting to see whether and to what extent both the recient security certificate hearings and the arrests of 'home grown bombers' will further change the focus of the inquiry.

- Jessica R