Latest news with #AngusReidInstitute
Associated Press
3 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
WWF-Canada calls for nation-building projects that 'heal nature, not harm it'
TORONTO, June 27, 2025 /CNW/ - Canada's Parliament has voted to give Cabinet sweeping new powers to accelerate 'nation-building' projects under Bill C-5, potentially bypassing environmental safeguards such as the Species at Risk Act (SARA), the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Fisheries Act and the Migratory Birds Convention Act. In our country's efforts to build the economy, World Wildlife Fund Canada believes any shovels in the ground must not be at the expense of endangered species and the habitats they rely on. Bill C-5 will allow Cabinet to override key environmental protections for projects that it deems to be in the national interest. While unstable geopolitics demand that Canada shore up its economy, nearly half of Canadians (49%) recognize that environmental regulations should not be bypassed to 'speed things up,' according to new data from the Angus Reid Institute. 'Prosperity is possible without sacrificing wetlands, forests, marine ecosystems or wildlife,' Megan Leslie, president and CEO of WWF-Canada says. 'Canadians want growth that strengthens our economy and our ecosystems. Bill C-5 can still deliver that future, but only if the government insists on projects that protect and restore, not harm, the nature that sustains us.' Canada's ecosystems sustain wildlife, store carbon, filter water and provide many other essential services helping our communities adapt to a changing climate. Gutting safeguards around their protection risks repeating the mistakes of the past — mistakes that have harmed Indigenous communities, damaged wildlife habitats and burdened generations of people across the country. The way forward is to make the protection of nature a prerequisite for development. That means complying with the intent of environmental laws such as SARA and the Fisheries Act and pursuing a balanced path to prosperity. The government should invest in large-scale, complex ecosystem restoration, Indigenous Guardians programs and renewable energy projects that have ecological integrity and durability at their core. Now is the time to fund nature-based solutions, develop conservation economies that strengthen communities, create jobs and help safeguard us from the impacts of climate change. 'The 'Building Canada' era should be remembered for landscapes restored, Indigenous rights respected and renewable energy delivered, not for nature pushed closer to the brink,' Leslie says. 'We stand ready to help government, industry and communities get this right.' About World Wildlife Fund Canada WWF-Canada is committed to equitable and effective conservation actions that restore nature, reverse wildlife loss and fight climate change. We draw on scientific analysis and Indigenous guidance to ensure all our efforts connect to a single goal: a future where wildlife, nature and people thrive. For more information visit SOURCE World Wildlife Fund Canada
CBC
6 days ago
- Politics
- CBC
Most Canadians don't know about the Air India bombing: poll
40 years on from the Air India bombing, some in B.C. fear history is being forgotten. An Angus Reid Poll survey finds few Canadians, around one-in-five, are able to identify the tragedy as the deadliest terror attack Canada has endured. To help us better understand this, CBC News spoke to Sachi Kurl who is the president of the Angus Reid Institute.
New Indian Express
6 days ago
- General
- New Indian Express
Two-thirds of Canadians want Air India's Kanishka bombing to be part of school curricula: Survey
CHANDIGARH: Two-thirds of Canadians believe details of the Kanishka Air India flight bombing in 1985 by Khalistani extremists in which 280 Canadian citizens and 49 others died should be part of the school curricula, while seven in ten say an exhibit on it should be created at the Canadian Museum of History. The findings were made by a new survey conducted by the non-profit Angus Reid Institute (ARI), published on the 40th anniversary of the bombing on June 23. "Today marks 40 years to the day that Canada endured the worst terror attack in its history, but if you ask most Canadians, there's a good chance they'd be unable to tell you that. On June 23, 1985, 280 Canadian citizens and 49 other people died when an explosion caused by a bomb brought down Air India Flight 182 on its way from Canada to London, England." "New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds few Canadians, approximately one-in-five (17 per cent), able to identify the Air India bombing as the deadliest terror attack Canada has endured. Further, just one-in-10 (9 per cent) say they know a lot about the incident, while one-third (32 per cent) had never heard of it," said the ARI. "There is larger agreement that the tragedy has never been treated as a national one by Canada. Half (51 per cent) believe the bombing "has never been treated like a Canadian tragedy", a proportion that grows among those who know a lot (60 per cent) about the incident. There is appetite among most Canadians for more to be done to educate the country about the incident," it added.
Ottawa Citizen
23-06-2025
- General
- Ottawa Citizen
Kurl: 40 Years On, we owe it to the victims of the Air India bombing to remember
'The death of a beloved is an amputation' – C.S. Lewis Article content In the wake of grief, the ghost pain of amputation follows: the ache of knowing a love now gone. The daily, monthly, yearly reminders of existences obliterated. Article content Article content After 40 years, it is also an apt reflection of the ways in which Canada has — and hasn't — reckoned with the deadliest terrorist attack on its own people. Exactly four decades ago today, 280 Canadian citizens, including 54 children, were murdered. Twenty-eight of them were from Ottawa. They met their end in a plane whose journey originated in Vancouver B.C., then was ripped apart over the Atlantic Ocean by a deliberately placed bomb. The plane belonged to India. The vast majority of its 329 passengers were Canadians. But the events have never been fully owned by this country. Article content Article content We report and reflect, for a moment, at this time every year. Outside of June 23, however, an event that should be seared into national memory is generally mentioned only in passing, appended to news coverage of bungled CSIS and RCMP investigations, or to discussions about Canada-India relations. Article content The death of a beloved is an amputation, Lewis wrote. Except for the ghost pain of victims' families, it has been lost, forgotten. Article content A new Angus Reid Institute survey canvassing awareness and perceptions of the attack finds more than 80 per cent in this country unable to correctly identify the bombing as the single worst case of mass murder of Canadians in our history. One-in-three (32 per cent) say they've never heard of the incident. This rises to a stunning 54 per cent among those aged 18-to-34. Article content What can the victims' families possibly take from this lack of awareness among their fellow citizens? At a gathering in Hamilton last month, it was a topic of still-raw anger, and floods of tears. Relatives recalled facing uphill fights for support from municipal parks boards and councillors merely in an effort to place memorial plaques across the country, such as the one at Ottawa's Dow's Lake. For some, it struck a pervasive chord of revictimization. Having lost so much, they had to fight, for so little. Article content Article content Fifty per cent of the general population itself says the attacks were never treated as a Canadian tragedy; this can be nothing short of an indictment of our leaders, our educators and ourselves. Article content Article content There is danger in forgetting, or not knowing at all. We're living in an era of disinformation. Activists are believed when they say vaccines are more harmful than helpful to populations. Grifters like Alex Jones only admit his lie that the gun-killings of 20 elementary school children at Sandy Hook Elementary school was a 'hoax' when dragged into court. Article content The circumstances of Flight 182's bombing are also now subject to disinformation. Elected politicians who know better are unwilling to talk about the origins of the bombing. Veteran journalists who know the facts far better than those trying to rewrite history are reticent to deal with this, because they don't want to feed the conspiracies.
Vancouver Sun
23-06-2025
- Vancouver Sun
Majority of Canadians say Air India bombing not treated like national tragedy: poll
Forty years after the Air India bombing, the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history, more than half of Canadians say that it has never been treated like a national tragedy. On June 23, 1985, Canadian Sikh terrorists blew up a bomb aboard Air India Flight 182, en route from Montreal to London, with a final destination of Mumbai. The plane exploded over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 329 people aboard. The debris washed up in Ireland. Of those aboard the plane, most of them were Canadian citizens. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Yet, 32 per cent of Canadians told the Angus Reid Institute that they had never heard of the attack. Just nine per cent said they know a lot about it. Among those who say they do know about the attack, 60 per cent say it hasn't been treated as a national tragedy. 'It continues to be not just a faded page in Canadian history, but almost a blank page, particularly among young people in this country, among young Canadians, the lack of awareness is really very stark,' said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute. In fact, the pollsters found that if they asked Canadians what was the deadliest attack in Canadian history, only 17 per cent identified the Air India bombing. Twenty-seven per cent identified the Polytechnique massacre in Montreal in December 1989, which left 14 women dead, as the deadliest, followed by 18 per cent who said the mass shootings around Portapique, Nova Scotia, in 2020, which killed 22 people, as the deadliest. While one-third of Canadians say they'd never heard of the Air India bombing, a majority — 59 per cent — say they know the main details. However, the number of Canadians who don't know about it has grown to 32 per cent from 28 per cent two years ago. 'This has never actually been treated like a Canadian tragedy,' said Kurl. 'The vast majority of victims were not white and or not of European descent. It was 1985; that absolutely plays a role, or is a factor, in the way this was handled.' Knowledge is particularly low among the youngest Canadians. Just five per cent of Canadians aged 18 to 34 say they know a lot about the attack, compared to seven per cent of those aged 35 to 54 and 15 per cent of those 55 and older. Those who say they know a little bit, just the main details, are concentrated in the eldest demographic too, with 74 per cent saying they know at least that much. 'How have 40 years gone by? How have 268 Canadian citizens been murdered, and our country has not just forgotten this, the data shows us, for many, particularly for younger adults today, is they just never knew anything about it,' said Kurl. In the aftermath of the attack, only one person, Inderjit Singh Reyat, was convicted, and he pleaded guilty to manslaughter for a bombing that killed two Japanese airport workers at Narita International Airport; it was supposed to bring down a second Air India flight. Only 29 per cent of Canadians can report accurately that nobody was convicted; in 2023, when pollsters asked the same question, 34 per cent knew the truth. Seventy-one per cent believe there should be an exhibit about the bombing at the Canadian Museum of History and 65 per cent say it should be taught in schools. Fewer of those polled, just 41 per cent, support displaying wreckage from the bombed plane in Canada. There are a number of conspiracies about the Air India bombing, and the polling finds that 51 per cent of those polled believe there is too much disinformation about what really happened. One conspiracy theory blames the Indian government for the attack. In fact, 10 per cent of Canadians believe the Indian government was behind the attack, while 28 per cent correctly identify violent factions within the Khalistan movement. (Sixty-one per cent of Canadians say they don't know who was responsible.) There will be ceremonies across the country to mark the anniversary of the bombing, and 13 per cent of Canadians say they would be interested in attending a memorial service, a number that holds roughly consistent across the country, except in Atlantic Canada, where 21 per cent say they would be interested. Such services have led to controversy as some attendees in the past have belonged to the Sikhs for Justice group, which supports the establishment of a Sikh homeland, and which believes one of the alleged architects of the attack is in fact innocent. Sixty-three per cent of Canadians say it is inappropriate for Khalistan supporters to attend such a memorial, including 69 per cent of those who say they know a lot about the Air India bombing. 'It's striking to see that in five or 10 years, a lot of the people who have tried to carry this torch of awareness while at the same time continuing to grieve for their loved ones, they're going to be gone. They're not going to be here anymore,' said Kurl. The polling was conducted online between June 13 and June 15, 2025, among a sample of 1,607 Canadian adults. The sample was weighted to be representative of adults nationwide according to region, gender, age, household income, and education, based on the Canadian census. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- two percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. 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