Family, community in Vancouver honour victims of Air India bombing on tragedy's 38th anniversary
Family members of victims say there's a need for more education about the tragedy
Family members and politicians gathered at Vancouver's Stanley Park for a ceremony Friday evening marking the National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism and honouring the victims of Air India Flight 182.
Dozens gathered to lay flowers at the official memorial site located in the park.
Among the speakers were former health minister of Canada Ujjal Dosanjh, B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix and Liberal MP Taleeb Noormohamed
June 23 marks the 38th anniversary of the bombing of Flight 182 in 1985, which killed 329 people, including 280 Canadian citizens.
The flight from Montreal to London exploded off the Irish coast, making the bombing the deadliest terrorist incident in Canada's history.
During the memorial, Dosanjh said the bombing should be recognized as a national tragedy.
"Where is that personal commitment that is required for us to cross the bridge from non-acceptance of this particular tragedy as a Canadian tragedy, to fully embracing this tragedy as a Canadian tragedy?" he said.
This week, a new poll out of the Angus Reid Institute found that nine out of 10 of those surveyed said they had little or no knowledge of the incident.
Family members of victims say there's a need for more education about the tragedy.
"Right now there's very little talk of this in any other in history books and we need to make sure our children and younger people really do understand what happened here so we can prevent this from ever happening again," said Deepak Khandelwal, executive director of the Air India Victims Families Association, who also lost two sisters in the bombing.
With files from Zahra Premji and Francis Plourde