VANCOUVER - A lawyer for the families of the Air India bombing victims says he hopes the long-awaited final report from the federal inquiry will "go as far as it can" in ensuring a similar terror attack doesn't happen again.
Jacques Shore said the families of the 329 people aboard Air India flight 182 killed in the 1985 terror attack have waited a long time for release of the final recommendations, and can hold on a bit longer as long as the results are based on complete information.
"This is something that needs to be done as best as possible," Shore said in an interview Wednesday.
"We waited a long time, so if we are waiting a little bit longer for a final report that is complete, is just and addresses the issues that we put forward of where is justice, then that will have been an important legacy for the victims."
That said, Shore hopes the report comes out before the 25th anniversary of the bombing on June 23, 2010.
The report was expected to be released in June, then again in the fall.
The commission announced Wednesday the report was complete, and now is being translated. It said a public release date will be announced "early in 2010."
The report will be published in five volumes totalling more than 3,000 pages. Commission staff reviewed more than 17,000 classified government documents and tens of thousands of documents in an RCMP database on the investigation.
The inquiry headed by retired Supreme Court of Canada justice John Major wrapped up public hearings in February 2008 after testimony from more than 200 witnesses that began in September 2006.
New evidence from the inquiry was made public last February suggesting a better effort by Canadian police, intelligence and transport officials could have averted the 1985 bombings, according to lawyers for the victims' families.
The documents provided additional details indicating that Transport Canada conducted only minimal monitoring of Air India's security arrangements in the months leading up to the bombing.
Other documents suggest Air India managers themselves were confused about some security measures the day ill-fated Flight 182 left Toronto, later to be downed off the coast of Ireland by a terrorist bomb.
All 329 passengers and crew, most of them Canadian citizens, died. A bomb inside luggage from a Canadian flight being transferred onto an Air India flight at Tokyo's Narita Airport went off around the same time, killing two baggage handlers.
The federal government has insisted it's not the job of the inquiry to point fingers at anyone for past mistakes.
The federal legal team has urged Major to concentrate on forward-looking recommendations to bolster future anti-terrorism efforts.
"I want it to go as far as it can go," Shore said of the pending report Wednesday. "There will not be another commission into the bombing of flight 182."
RCMP Commissioner William Elliott told The Canadian Press last month he expects the Mounties will come under harsh criticism in the report for their handling of the case.
He also said that would be "fair and reasonable" given the problems plaguing the Canadian intelligence community at the time of the terror attack.
The investigation was hampered by turf wars between the Mounties and recently formed Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Elliott acknowledged the RCMP's relationship with Canada's spy agency wasn't good, but said the two have come a long way since then.
He said he hopes the inquiry report will provide guidelines for navigating the tough questions that arise when secret intelligence must be used in court as evidence against terror suspects.
The Air India bombings were blamed on Sikh terrorists operating from a base in British Columbia, but only one man has ever been convicted, on a reduced charge of manslaughter.
Another was shot dead by police in India and two more were acquitted at trial in Vancouver -- a verdict that sparked outrage among the victims' families and led to creation of the Major inquiry.
