Issue 66 Vol III, June 30, 2008

T H I S  O U R  N O R T H  A M E R I C A

Canadian housing market under U.S. shadow
Khushwant Toor writes from Toronto

NOT only the analysts now, but all the professionals connected with the Canadian housing market are feeling concerned over constantly slowing real estate market in Canada. The Canadian housing market has ceased to be a sellers' market in both the residential and the recreational sectors. The boom experienced over the past few years is over. From real estate agents, to the home inspectors, the lawyers and even the bankers dealing with mortgage tell the same story; it’s slower then the last year.

The long awaited end of the boom is reflected in more moderate demand and increased supply of properties for sale. Average annual price gains on a national basis were running on average at about 10 percent between 2002 and 2007. However, historically the average growth rate should have been around 4.5 percent. It seems that the high percent increase enjoyed by the property owners during the past years, will be dropping to its historic trends soon in Canada.

In some areas, the sale and purchase of houses have slowed down by 40 percent of what was a year ago. However, the prices of the properties have not dropped down as they have in the U.S. with an exception to a few places such as home prices in Calgary and Edmonton in April to June, for instance, fell to below year-earlier levels.

Interestingly, recreational property prices continue to rise, but at approximately half the rate of the increase in 2007. The average price for a recreational property in Canada now ranges between $326,567 and $1,066,389, according to the 2008 Royal LePage (a real estate brokerage company) Recreational Property Report.

Canadian banks expected this slow down to occur much earlier; its only that largely due to increased affordability through new financing options, such as no money down or extended amortizations, housing remained stronger for longer than anticipated. But even those additional buyers have now been absorbed, say the banks.

Despite the slowdown in selling and purchasing, analysts predict that Canada is not going to see the same boom-bust cycle seen in the United States. What Canadians will see, is that the boom will end with the growth in prices coming down to very low single digits, predict the analyses.

The forecast is that the price growth in 2008 will average two per cent and then it will be about 3.5 per cent next year.

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Remembering victims of Kanishka bombing
Gobind Thukral

23 years ago, on June 23, 1985 Air-India's Boeing-747 Kanishka jet was blown up in midair off the Irish coast, killing all 329 people on board. Of the 329 victims, 289 were Canadians, a majority from the Toronto area. Many of them were people of Indian origin who boarded for their home country. Many were from Punjab.

The tragedy had struck as the Canadians authorities; the police, intelligence agencies and other security setup did not heed the warnings from Indian authorities and the public. Punjab at that time was virtually on fire. We were witness to tragic Operation Blue Star, killing of Mrs. Indira Gandhi and massacre of Sikhs in Delhi. Any body could do anything. That was the vitiated time and ferocious atmosphere. Both American and Canadian governments had been encouraging a section of the extremist politicians in India. They were to learn lessons much later in September 2001 when the extremists bombed New York and Washington.

Each year relatives and friends assemble at the Kanishka memorial on the banks of Lake Ontario in Toronto to lay wreaths. Now Canada observes June 23 as the National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism. Yet they also wonder why the real culprits have not been booked and punished so far. Only Indejit Singh Rayat has been in jail for the past 20 years.  The bombing conspiracy trial is considered the most expensive in Canadian history, costing nearly 130 million Canadian dollars. The two main accused in the case, Ripudaman Singh Malik, 57, and Ajaib Singh Bagri, 55, who were tried in a Vancouver court in Canada were acquitted as the judge did not find much evidence in the prosecution story. Former chief justice of India, Justice B N Kirpal, who headed a commission of inquiry into the Kanishka bombing, had regretted that the Canadian police could not do a good job of collecting evidence to support their case. "If they [Malik and Bagri] did not do it, then someone else did it? Who did it? That is the question that needs to be answered. If someone else placed the bomb in the aircraft then the Canadian police have failed to track them down. It is a pity that nobody has been convicted in a case involving the loss so many lives."

Now an Inquiry Commission headed by former Canadian Supreme Court chief justice, John Major is probing the 1985 bombing of the Air India plane `Kanishka’.  It started in early 2006 and is still on. Remember enquires into massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and elsewhere or enquiries into massacre of Muslims in Gujarat. Are we near justice?

John major has been making interesting observations all through this period. He observed that racism played a part in the way Canadian authorities responded to the tragedy that killed 329 passengers on board. Its ``hard not to share'' an impression held by some of the families of the victims that race played a factor in how the investigation was handled” Justice John Major  also said , “That is the fact that, if it had been an Air Canada plane and Anglo-Saxons, things would have been different.''  Also former Ontario Premier Bob Rae during his testimony before the Commission said he gathered from his interactions with the families of the victims that they felt their loss had not been adequately understood as a Canadian tragedy. “Many of them said to me that if the colour of their skin had been different, the level of sharing would have been different. Whole families were wiped out.’’ They families even d today assert that it was not a Canadian tragedy and did not happen to the Whites. Does race or colour matter even in a country that boasts of its tolerant multi cultural public life. It does matter even leaders like Rae saying,” This is a Canadian tragedy. It happened to us.’’

On June 23 this year Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper who paid tributes to the victims of the Air India bombing and said that his government was committed to prevent such acts of terrorism from happening again. He also said "On this day, the anniversary of the worst terrorist incident in Canadian history -- the bombing of Air India flight 182 -- we pause to remember those who have lost their lives through acts of terror here in Canada and around the world."  He was sounding that he realised the dangers of extremist politics now even though his Conservative government at times looked racist.

Harper in a statement to mark the fourth annual National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism said.” The government of Canada remains committed to supporting the victims of terror and vigilant to preventing such acts of terrorism from happening again. As incidents such as the bombing of Air India Flight 182 on June 23, 1985, and the attacks of September 11, 2001, have shown, Canadians are not immune from the threat of terrorism."

His kind words, "We take this day to honour the victims of terror by commemorating their loss. It is our hope that those who have died will not be forgotten and that those who grieve will find comfort. Our thoughts and prayers will forever be with them" may neither sooth all nor solve the problems that cause the birth of extremist politics.

Interestingly, the memorial features a sundial, marking the inevitable passage of time. The granite inscription wall is oriented in the direction of Ireland, the crash site. It bears the names of the 331 victims. These include the Kanishka passengers and crew as well as two baggage handlers killed by a bomb at Narita airport, Japan, while loading an Air-India flight on the same day that Kanishka was bombed. The sundial marks the passage of the sun on the fateful day.

Of the total $625,000 project cost, the Canadian federal government committed $400,000 and the provincial government the rest. Land in Humber Bay East was donated by the City of Toronto. This does heal as the relatives and friends can sit around and remember their loved ones. Yet this memorial does not answer the basic questions why and how the tragedy like many other tragedies in Punjab and rest of India happened.  These keep on repeating and will continue to do so till the dirty macabre politics rules over us. And, there shall be troubling unanswered questions to haunt the Canadian and Indian politicians and the public alike.

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Filmmaker reclaims Air India 182 tragedy as part of Canadian history

Director Sturla Gunnarsson, shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2005, used documentary footage and dramatic re-enactment to tell the Air India story. Air India flight 182 is a recurring theme over the last 23 years, yet Gunnarsson asserts through his full  story has never been told. Gunnarsson said, “When the plane went down over the Atlantic Ocean, killing 329 passengers and crew, the tragedy was not perceived as part of Canada's history.” How true is this?

Then prime minister Brian Mulroney sent condolences to the Indian government rather than the Indian-Canadian families who lost families. And the long trial of those charged in bombing the plane and the subsequent government inquiry added more details without helping it make any  sense to Canadians.

He has  given  a clear narrative and  placed right in the centre of the Canadian narrative in this  docudrama Air India 182  which was recently  shown  on CBC. Gunnarsson asserets , "There's been a mountain of information — there's been information overload, but I think in process, the families and the victims kind of got lost and dehumanized." He  has screened his film in Vancouver and Toronto, cities with large Sikh communities and where many families of victims lived. Gunnarsson said, "For me it's agonizing, horrible, to sit through the screening because I know each scene that's coming and I'm thinking next they'll have to see this."

The explosives that blew up Air India were allegedly planted by Sikh extremists in luggage that was loaded in Vancouver, but only one person has ever been convicted in relation to the tragedy.

Inderjit Singh Reyat pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2003 and received a five-year sentence. The suspected ringleader, Talwinder Singh Parmar, died in India in 1992 and the RCMP's two main surviving suspects were both acquitted in March 2005 after a 19-month trial.

But he said the film is being greeted a sense of relief in the Sikh community. The response he  had was  of gratitude that this is the story they wanted out there. Perhaps ,it's a story that needs to be told.

Gunnarsson talked to families of the victims and the CSIS and RCMP officers who investigated, and said he encountered very little resistance in gathering the documentary material. He says,"Everybody involved in this wants to talk about it — this has been a defining moment in everyone's life.People would relive the moment in such detail. It was as though they were trying to hold on to the moment and not let it move on to the horrible conclusion."

"There's a perception in the Sikh community than any telling of this tale is going to end perpetuating stereotypes of Sikh terrorists," Gunnarsson said.

"My view is just the opposite…. It's important for Canadian Sikhs to stand up and say this is not who we are and that was the argument I made to the people who I was going to cast."The story that he brings forward in the film is all on public record, but Gunnarsson acknowledges that the bombing of Air India 182 looks different today in the light of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"This is a terrorist attack that sees 331 people dead and there was no outcry. Parliament wasn't sitting for weeks trying to debate what it meant. There was no national mourning," Gunnarsson said, admitting that he set out to define the story as a piece of Canadian history.

He says ,"I think we paid a horrible price because what we did was 23 years ago, we denied the fact that the biggest act of terrorism in the Western world had actually taken place in Canada."

Gunnarsson has structured his film chronologically, with CSIS and RCMP investigators, family members and aviation officials recalling the final days, hours and minutes leading up to the tragic moment. By giving his story a readily definable beginning, middle and end, Gunnarsson manages to unravel the complexities of a complicated story. We know how it's going to end, but that only increases the dramatic tension somehow -- not that anyone needs a reason to keep watching. Air India 182 resembles Paul Greengrass's United 93 in that respect, with one important difference: It's real, not a recreation.

The Toronto-based Gunnarsson, who grew up in Vancouver, told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview that he hopes his film—which has actors playing Sikh-extremist conspirators Talwinder Singh Parmar, Inderjit Singh Reyat, and Hardial Singh Johal—will cause Canadians to “do some really hard thinking” about home grown terrorism. “I think that a lot of the issues that were at play back then continue to be at play,” he said. “I think we have a willingness to tolerate odious ideologies if they come dressed up in an exotic form in this country.”

Air India 182 includes news footage juxtaposed with newer interviews with more than a dozen relatives of victims, who tell poignant stories about final minutes spent with their loved ones before they boarded the plane. The first relative, Mandip Singh Grewal, recounts how as a boy, he saw Johal, a janitor who worked for the Vancouver school district, at the airport on the day his father boarded the plane. Grewal, who is on the verge of tears, explains how he found it puzzling that Johal would have been at the airport on that day.

Parkash Bedi, who lost his wife and two children on the plane, tells a moving Gunnarsson said he wanted to convey the humanity of the terrorists as well, portaying convicted bomber Reyat as a family man and a mechanic with a sense of humour who somehow ended up in a murderous plot. Retired RCMP officer Doug Henderson, who investigated the case, said that Reyat “seemed to me like a nice family man”.

The film also gives extensive airtime to Jack Hooper, the former deputy director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which failed to warn authorities that a cell of radical Sikhs planned to blow up two airplanes. Gunnarsson said that he learned a great deal about intelligence activities while making the film, and that he now has a sympathetic view of the magnitude of their challenge. “It was like the defining moment of their lives, yet they carry this tremendous guilt around with them because of it,” he said.

Air India 182 was aired on CBC Television without commercial interruption.

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