Mulroney worried about country's image after Air India: documents

Brian Mulroney's Conservative government worried about Canada's image after the 1985 Air India bombing because diplomats weren't moving quickly enough to help victims' families, new documents show.
The papers, tabled Tuesday at a public inquiry into the tragedy, indicate that the message was relayed in no uncertain terms to Foreign Affairs Department bureaucrats by top aides to Mulroney and then-foreign minister Joe Clark.
Minutes of a meeting held three days after the bombing quoted Jodi White, Clark's chief of staff, on the need to speed things up.
She told the assembled officials that Fred Doucet, her counterpart in the Prime Minister's Office, "wanted [the department] to pursue consular matters quicker because the government must be seen to be showing concern and action."
White suggested a phone hotline be set up for grieving relatives to obtain information and assistance, a seemingly elementary step that Foreign Affairs had not yet taken.
07/11/06 The Canadian Press/CBC Manitoba

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