[REVIEW] Kim Bolan, Loss of Faith

[rfmcdonald]

Vancouver journalist Kim Bolan's Loss of Faith: How the Air India Bombers Got Away With Murder provides a good overview of the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182 that killed all 429 passengers and crewmembers onboard, and the catastrophically flawed investigation and trial of the bombers, Sikh activists hoping to use violence to achieve an independent Khalistan. One of the first Canadian journalists involved in exploring the origins of the tragedy in the radical political movements active in the Sikh diaspora, Bolan paints a convincing picture of a Canadian government that not only failed to take action against the radical activists who were harassing and attacking moderates, but which allowed interservice rivalries between the RCMP and Canada's new spy agency CSIS to kneecap the investigation and exclude the possibility of anyone being convicted for the bombing. This two-decade-long failure doesn't bode well for future investigations into terrorism in Canada, I fear.