Air India families decry payment amounts

Published Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010 11:24PM EDTLast updated Monday, Oct. 25, 2010 9:22AM EDT90 comments

As the federal government tries to bring closure to the 25-year-old Air India bombing with proposed ex-gratia payments to family members of the victims, previously invisible fissures within the group are coming to the surface with implications that could complicate the healing process.

At a private meeting last week, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney spoke with relatives of the 329 people who were killed in 1985 when a bomb, hidden inside a suitcase, exploded on Air India Flight 182 bound for India from Toronto. In June of this year, Mr. Justice John Major released a voluminous report into the bombing, detailing how the federal government and Canada’s national security agencies bungled the case both before and after the attack. The report called for, among other things, symbolic compensation.

A handful of family members have publicly complained about the dollar figures raised in discussions with them by Minister Toews and Minster Kenney, despite requests from the government that they refrain from speaking to the media. The government did not make a formal offer, but pointed out that previous ex-gratia payments – which are made without admission of legal liability and have been given to Japanese-Canadians who were placed in internment camps during the Second World War, as well as those forced to pay the Chinese head tax – have ranged from $20,000 to $25,000.

Contacted for this story, most family members declined to speak for the record about their reaction to the figure; some said their primary concern is seeing the national security recommendations of Judge Major brought into force, and that money is not an issue. Others, however, expressed outrage.

Esther Venketeswaran, whose father Trichur Krihnan Venketeswaran died in the bombing, called the amount “insulting, demeaning, disrespectful.

“All we’re asking from the government is an appropriate, respectful dollar figure to help us get our life back. That’s all we’re asking. Step up and do the right thing,” she said.

The disparate reactions may be related to the ad hoc manner in which lawsuits were launched immediately following the bombing. In his report, Judge Major pointed out that the size of settlements varied, and in some cases, families say they received nothing.

In an interview, Ms. Venketeswaran and her mother Ann Venketeswaran, a retired nurse, said they felt left out of the initial organizing of litigation, partly because they live near Niagara Falls, Ont., geographically removed from most of the other families. In all, Mr. Venketeswaran’s wife and two children received about $315,000 from the airline itself, $60,000 of which was handed over to legal fees, the family said. They have received nothing from the government, they said.

More than three years ago, Ann Venketsewaran, 74, was evicted from the home that her and her late husband purchased in the late 1970s. The original mortgage had been paid in full, but she took out a home equity loan a few years ago to help pay for her daughter’s education, and was unable to make the payments, she said.

Asked what figure would restore their faith in the government, the mother and daughter answered in unison: “$1-million.”

“If $1-million wasn’t feasible, I would have gone with $750,000,” Esther Venketeswaran said. “But $20,000 is not even in the ballpark. It’s missing the mark completely.”

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