A Conservative MP from Vancouver is backtracking from her stunning claim that Canada’s spy agency knew the infamous Air India attack was coming, but still failed to stop it.

Backbencher Wai Young, who has represented the Vancouver-South riding since 2011, made the shocking remarks while defending the Harper government’s controversial anti-terror bill to a church congregation in late June.

“If Bill C-51 were in place 30 years ago, Air India never would have happened. Those some 400 lives would have been saved,” Young said of the June 23, 1985 attack. “That is because CSIS knew or heard there was a bomb onboard this plane.”

She went on to claim there were strict laws in place preventing CSIS and the RCMP from sharing word of the bomb on Flight 182 at the time of the tragedy.

“Because [CSIS] couldn’t share that information with the RCMP, the RCMP could not act to take that bomb off that plane. Today, with C-51, they will be able to share that information,” Young said.

A three-year inquiry into the Air India attack, which killed 329 people, did find serious failures of communication between the two agencies, but there were no laws preventing them from sharing information.

There's never been any evidence to suggest the spy agency knew there was a bomb on the plane, either.

National security expert Reg Whitaker said he was shocked to hear a politician so off the mark about such a serious issue.

“Everything she said about Air India was, in fact, wrong,” Whitaker said. “She couldn’t even get the number of victims right.”

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Major, who headed the federal inquiry into the bombing, called for the creation of a national security advisor position to coordinate between CSIS and the RCMP, which the government refused to adopt. Major has since criticized C-51 for failing to address the issues he raised.

Conservatives' actions in 'same vein' as Jesus's

During the same June church event, Young also suggested Jesus would endorse the anti-terror bill, and even went so far as to compare the holy figure with the Harper government.

“Jesus served and acted always to do the right thing, not the most popular thing,” Young told the crowd at Harvest City Church. “I want to let you know our government will stand firm. We will always act and do the right thing.”

Young used C-51 as an example of something the Harper government’s doing that’s “in the same vein” as Jesus's actions.

The headline-making remarks created a firestorm on social media, and sent the hashtag #cpcjesus trending across the country this week.

On Wednesday, Young declined an interview with CTV News to clarify her comments, but backpedaled on some of them in an email statement.

“I misspoke with regards to the investigation of the Air India bombing,” she wrote.

“What the Commission of Inquiry determined was that government agencies were in possession of significant pieces of information that would have led a competent analyst to conclude that Flight 182 was at high risk of being bombed by known Sikh terrorists.”

Major’s report found that the available information “clearly identified a particularized threat to Air India for the month of June 1985,” and should have compelled the government “to tailor and implement security measures to meet this identified threat.”

Listen to the full recording of Young's speech at Harvest City Church below.