Sheryl Saperia: Canada failed to learn the lessons of the Air India bombing
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Among the alleged would-be attackers was Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, who immigrated to Canada and was granted citizenship despite previously appearing in an ISIS beheading video. Together with his adult son, Eldidi was intercepted by police 'in the advanced stages' of an attack plot and in possession of a machete and an axe.
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In another incident, police intercepted Muhammad Shahzeb Khan as he was en route from Toronto to New York City, where he allegedly planned to 'kill as many Jewish civilians as possible.' A Pakistani citizen, Khan was here on a student visa and had even applied for refugee status.
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'Today we were unlucky, but remember we have only to be lucky once, you will have to be lucky always,' wrote the Irish Republican Army's leadership, after failing to murder Margaret Thatcher in the Brighton hotel bombing. This is the insidious calculus that terrorists make.
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Four decades after the Air India tragedy, remembrance should go hand-in-hand with resolve to prevent future acts of terror.
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Yet, just as Canada catastrophically ignored and enabled the predations of Khalistani extremists who were explicit about their murderous intentions 40 years ago, Canada's civic institutions have withered once again, this time in the face of Canadians shouting their support, admiration and ideological fealty for the genocidal intentions of Hamas and the Iranian regime.
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While ideological terror is often defined by its moral clarity and political audacity, Canadian leaders too often respond with ambiguity and temerity.
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Today, Canada's anemic response to its newfound stature as an importer, exporter and hub of violent extremism and antisemitism betrays the same latticework of systemic failures that were laid bare in the wreckage of Flight 182 in 1985.
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Our immigration laws, security protocols, Criminal Code provisions and frameworks for supporting victims — including those who are injured or killed outside of Canada — all demand an immediate overhaul. Terrorism usually does not begin with an explosion or a bullet; it gestates within gaps in the systems it seeks to exploit.
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The 40-year breach between Canada's worst terrorist attack and the broad policy recalibration that Canada has yet to undertake has created ideal conditions for a cascade of epic proportions, which, given the new technologies available to terrorists, could irreparably alter Canada's security landscape and social cohesion.
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Those whose lives have been devastated by terrorism have not only earned our sympathy, but our admiration for their resilience. The victims and their families have been leading the charge in advocating for systemic changes that, once adopted by our federal government, will help keep all Canadians safe.
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