Canadian Diplomats Suing Their Government

"Throughout the crisis, Canada downplayed the seriousness of the situation, hoarded and concealed critical health and safety information, and gave false, misleading and incomplete information to diplomatic staff."
"[Global Affairs] actively interfered with the plaintiffs' attempts to receive proper health care, including going so far as instructing hospitals to stop testing and treating them."
"Despite knowing of the risks of Havana Syndrome early on, Canada continued to put its diplomats and their families in harm's way by sending them to Havana and requiring them to stay there despite becoming aware of the high and growing risk that they would sustain the brain injuries associated with Havana Syndrome."
Statement of Claim, $28-Million Lawsuit

"We knew there was something [happening] but we just couldn't figure out what was going on. Living in Cuba [as diplomatic staff] we understood that our houses were bugged."
"It just hit me, 'Holy crap, this [symptoms such as nausea, headaches, nosebleeds, hearing and eye problems from an unknown source] is going on in my house'."
"At the low point, I thought I was going to throw up. I was nauseous like you wouldn't believe. I don't know whether I went back to sleep or passed out."
Diplomat Allan (names withheld)

"My belief 21 months later is that decisions were made that simply did not prioritize us, not our health, not our safety and not that of our families."
"I am angry, yes. I am disappointed and I am sad. I am sad because there is no justification for not having considered the personal and lifelong impact this was going to have on us."
Diplomat Baker (generic names used for anonymity)

A view of the Canadian Embassy in Havana, Cuba, on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009. (Franklin Reyes/Associated Press)

Five Canadian diplomats assigned to posts in Cuba, and 14 of their family members have filed a law suit against the federal government resulting from the mysterious illness they suffered while posted to Cuba and living in Havana. According to the suit the Canadian government which is responsible for the well-being of all Canadians and in particular their staff abroad, failed to inform, protect, treat and support them at a time of need.

Canadian families in Havana, the lawsuit states, "have been targeted and injured, suffering severe and traumatic harm by means that are not clear but may be some type of sonic or microwave weapon". And nor have Canadians been the sole targets. In fact American diplomats have been exposed and have suffered identical symptoms and injuries in their posting to Cuba. The affliction they all suffer from is now known as Havana Syndrome.

The government of Cuba claims to be just as mystified regarding the source of the syndrome as the U.S. and Canadians. Co-operation between all three governments to find the source of the problem has been welcomed, but no answers to the questions have resulted. The United States decided to dramatically reduce the number of diplomatic staff until such time as the matter can be more fully understood. It took Canada quite a while longer to decide not to permit family members to accompany diplomatic staff assigned to Cuba to accompany them.

Two years ago healthy diplomatic staff and their family members were beginning to experience peculiar symptoms; nosebleeds, headaches that appeared to have no explanation. Excruciating headaches would afflict them upon waking in the morning followed by nausea and problems with vision. The Allen family received no warning or information from the embassy or from Global Affairs, but a neighbouring U.S. diplomat who knew of the problem and whose own experience echoed that of the Allens, disclosed the situation to him.

Their feelings of fear, extreme irritability, nausea, headaches, nosebleeds had an unknown cause, but the situation was known to those who had earlier gone through the trauma. At the point when Allen was informed he was also told that a dozen Americans had been evacuated from Havana once it was ascertained that something strange was causing them to suffer those headaches, nosebleeds, hearing and eye problems. The Americans too were sworn to secrecy about the issue.

Eventually the Allen family was sent to the University of Miami for testing. A doctor there had examined about twenty Americans with similar symptoms, who had also been based in Havana. He diagnosed all four members of the Allen family with traumatic brain injuries similar to symptoms from concussions, recommending the children not return to Cuba: "They need to be away from Cuba for awhile".

Yet according to the lawsuit the Canadian embassy refused to send the Allen children back to Canada. The very fact that the Canadian diplomatic staff who knew about the situation were ordered to be silent about the issue, not to discuss anything with other staff newly arrived, knowing nothing of what was transpiring, did not impress these newly-diagnosed Canadians very positively.

Another diplomatic family, Diplomat Davies, wife and two young children were experiencing strange things in their house in Havana in the spring and summer of 2017 where the young daughter was increasingly unable to concentrate at school, suffering from nausea, tinnitus, sensitivity to light, visual impairment and sudden nosebleeds. Mrs. Davies lost her sense of balance, reported hearing high-pitched sounds. "I no longer knew where was up and where was down", she informed her husband after a strange fall.

She was diagnosed with damage to her vestibular system; parts of the inner ear and brain that process sensory information, was hypersensitive to light and noise, suffered from headaches, dizziness and muscle twitching. By all these accounts it is manifest that the government of Canada has failed in its obligation to its employees, to keep them safe from harm and to respond to their needs. The diplomats and their families are now undergoing tests at Dalhousie University's Brain Repair Centre.

The research and tests there have pointed out leakages in their blood brain barriers consistent with symptoms of concussions. When Global Affairs appeared to hesitate about the need to ensure that these people were given swift medical attention, several of the families travelled to University of Pennsylvania after officials there had offered to assess and treat Canadians, but the offer was turned down by the federal government.

All sound reasons to demand attention and remedial action, even if it was recognized that such would only be forthcoming through the compelling action of a lawsuit.