Honourable senators, 40 years ago this month — on June 23, 1985 — Air India Flight 182 took off from Montreal, bound first for London and then on to Delhi and Mumbai. But the 747 never arrived. It exploded over the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people on board, including 268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens and 22 Indian citizens.

It was the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history.

A second bomb, intended for Air India Flight 301, detonated while in baggage transfer in Tokyo’s Narita International Airport. The Canadian extremist Sikh terrorists had intended to blow up the airplane in flight, but because the conspirators failed to take into consideration the difference between Canadian and Japanese daylight saving time, the passengers were spared. Two Japanese baggage handlers were not so lucky and died when the bomb exploded.

These were acts of brutal political violence that ripped apart families and traumatized Canada’s South Asian community for decades. It took years for any of the terrorists to be brought to justice, and we are honoured to have among us our new colleague, Senator Baltej Dhillon, one of the RCMP investigators who worked so hard on that complicated investigation.

In 2010, Canada belatedly completed a judicial public inquiry and apologized, both for the security and intelligence lapses that allowed this mass murder to happen, and for the fact that the government of the day left many with the impression that the Air India victims were somehow not real Canadians and their deaths somehow didn’t count as a loss for the whole nation.

We have come a long way, as a multicultural nation, since 1985, but 40 years on, we are again in an era when leading politicians in India and other countries are exploiting religious differences and cultural prejudices to advance their own agendas, and when the political tensions in India are being weaponized in an attempt to divide the South Asian community here.

At the same time, the face of terrorism has changed since Air India and since 9/11. Today, instead of groups of conspirators, we seem more likely to see acts of political terror and assassination around the world being carried out by solitary extremists or even state actors.

At a time when so many malignant forces seek to divide and misinform us, to leverage hatreds of all sorts for political advantage, we in Canada need to be on guard not only against terrorists but against our own prejudices and historic biases. As we mark this dark anniversary, let us honour the memories of our lost Canadian brothers and sisters by committing ourselves to stand against intolerance, polarization and extremism in all their terrifying forms.