Families of the victims of the 1985 Air India disaster met with Prime Minister Paul Martin on Tuesday and were told that he will join them at a special remembrance ceremony in Ireland.

And for the first time, as a special reminder, flags across Canada will be lowered to half-mast on June 23.

The meeting, held in Toronto, brought many people from nearby, but others came from as far away as Vancouver.

Prime Minister Paul Martin on Tuesday.

"It's a bit sad that it took 20 years, but it's important," said Bal Gupta.

The meeting marked the first time in the nearly 20 years since the Air India bombing that a prime minister of Canada agreed to talk about the worst mass murder in the country's history with a large group of victims' families.

"This is one of the greatest losses that this country has ever suffered in terms of sheer numbers of people," Martin told reporters after leaving the meeting, "but when you meet the families, you're not talking about numbers -- you're talking about a mother, or a father, or an uncle, or you're talking about children, and it's very, very real."

Wreckage from the Air India disaster. (CP file photo)

Three hundred and twenty-nine people, most of them Canadians, died when Air India Flight 182 exploded near the south coast of Ireland.

No prime minister ever saw fit to make such a gesture: not Brian Mulroney, or Kim Campbell, or Jean Chrétien.

Rattan Kalsi, who lost his daughter on that summer morning in June, said he wants two things. "I want justice. Give me justice. Give me my daughter back."

Martin can't fulfil Kalsi's request, but he did promise to remember the victims, announcing he will join the families in Cork, Ireland, on the 20th anniversary of the disaster, on June 23.

There will be a special commemoration at that time. Ottawa has already promised to cover part of the travel costs of families who wish to attend.

The meeting was private and, by all accounts, emotional. It was a chance for the families to listen to Martin and to get answers about where Ottawa stands on the call for a public inquiry.

"We are not looking for revenge or anything like that, it is just that justice should be served," said Sunita Manjania.

The families have always demanded an inquiry, but renewed their push in March after a B.C. judge acquitted two men, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, charged in the bombing.

Former Ontario premier Bob Rae, who has the job of investigating and recommending what Ottawa's next step should be, says, "I'm not ruling anything out."

He believes there must be some form of public reckoning, but not necessarily a public inquiry.

"Believe me, nobody wants to go through an exercise that is fruitless, or that doesn't come up with new information. We have to make sure there is information to be had."

Security issues and an ongoing RCMP criminal investigation raise, for any future public review, the same kind of legal problems that are plaguing the Maher Arar inquiry.

Rae wants a solution that will avoid those problems. He has already talked with the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and has begun reviewing mountains of documents, including some classified information.

He's met with victims' families in Vancouver and Toronto, and will likely meet families in India before his report is finished this fall.