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ambit of directors' and officers' fiduciary duties; and 2005's British Columbia v. Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., which backed legislation allowing the province to sue tobacco companies for recovery of health-care costs. Justice Ian Binnie, who has been at the Supreme Court of Canada since 1998, believes the profession has underestimat- ed Major's contribution to the top court. "Jack Major is an intensely practical man," he says. "Probably his distinguishing fea- game plan" of how they would steer the proceedings, and on June 21, 2006, he laid out the inquiry's terms of reference. They included an appraisal of how well Canadian law curtails terrorist financ- ing, the adequacy of protection for wit- nesses in terrorism cases, and the need for improved aviation security. Oral submissions from those seek- ing official standing were heard start- ing July 18, including a request from Malik. Major, who speculates that Malik and opened a school for poor children named after his three-year-old daughter Sarada. Sankurathri later created an eye hospital in honour of his six-year-old son, Srikiran, who despite his young age planned to become a pediatric ophthal- mologist. "That's a remarkable story," says Major. "Others didn't respond quite as well." The inquiry continued through- — that is, black lines drawn through — which I eventually got un-redacted, and you'd read and you'd wonder, well why? What difference does this make, that — John Major ture is that he has excellent judgment, so that he very quickly seizes the point of the particular controversy, and goes after it without too much fanfare or getting distracted with too many side issues." Major departed from the Supreme Court in December 2005, with his term set to expire in February 2006. He returned to Bennett Jones as a consultant in January 2006, but any plans to smell the roses swiftly ended when Harper solicited him for the Air India file. Major says he was keen to take on the challenge of leading the inquiry, but admits he expected it to wrap up far sooner than it did. It took about six months just to set up the hearings, with menial tasks such as the search for rental space, hiring staff, setting up computers, and other logistics all part of the process. The inquiry staff completed what Major calls a "rough-out assumed his bid would be swiftly denied, agreed to give him intervener status. Curiously, Malik never showed up when the hearings got underway. The inquiry then moved to receiv- ing testimony from victims' families, who were not cross-examined and spoke generally about the impact the bomb- ing had on them. That testimony has been chronicled in a volume from the inquiry's phase-one report, titled, "The Families Remember." Major recalls being touched specifically by the testimony of Dr. Chandra Sankurathri, a former biol- ogist at Health and Welfare Canada, who lost his wife and two young children in the tragedy. In 1988, after years of hope- less grieving, Sankurathri quit his gov- ernment job, liquidated his assets, and returned to India. He then established a charity in honour of his wife, Manjari, out the fall of 2006, notably receiving evidence from Rae, who discussed the security breakdowns that made way for the bombing. But Major met significant roadblocks from the RCMP and CSIS, which refused to make public parts of key documents, beginning in early 2007. Government lawyers said the informa- tion could not be made public due to ongoing security concerns, but an unsat- isfied Major demanded the information be released. He put the hearings on hold on Feb. 19 of that year, saying he simply couldn't carry out his mandate if portions of the documents remained blacked out. This prompted Harper to get involved, ordering government law- yers to take a less restrictive approach to the release of documents. Commission lead counsel Mark Freiman released a statement March 23 indicating he was now confident the inquiry would have the evidence needed to continue. Major says the ongoing struggle the inquiry faced in receiving information was the main reason it dragged on until the release of his report this June, rather than wrapping up in the year or two he expected. "The thing is 25 years old," he says. "We were not naming names. We were not going to attach specific blame to any person. If it was critical, it would be of the institution. But I didn't get the assistance I thought might be coming. So we had to dig it out ourselves, and that took a lot of work." Parties to the inquiry have roundly applauded Major for standing up to CSIS and the RCMP and threatening to shutter the inquiry. Jacques Shore, co-lead counsel to the Air India Victims Families Association, says the gambit earned the commissioner his stripes early on. "He basically stared them down and said, 'Either you make this meaningful by giving us what we need www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com SEPTEMBER 2010 29