Questions
What is being hidden?
In 1990 Dr. Harvey Weinstein, a Montreal born and raised psychiatrist, educated at the McGill Medical School, describes in his book ‘Son, Father, and CIA” with pain and empathy the erosion of his father’s personality, after treatment at the Allan Memorial and those of other patients. What is deeply disturbing is the lack of an apology and compensation from the Canadian and U.S governments - and especially the Canadian government that provided so very little to those affected . In 1988, the U.S agreed to a $100,000 payment to each of the nine former Allan Memorial patients while the Canadian government agreed to $20,000 to the same patients.
The $20,000 paid by the Canadian government stands in stark contrast to other instances where the Canadian government paid much higher amounts to cases where it facilitated the torture of its own citizens:
Maher Arar: In 2007, the Canadian government issued a formal apology and awarded Arar $10.5 million (plus $1 million for legal fees) for assisting in the deportaion of Arar to Syria by U.S. agents based on inaccurate information provided by the RCMP.
Abdulla Almalki, Ahad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin: These three men reached a combined settlement of $31.25 million in 2017. While individual payouts were not officially disclosed due to confidentiality, the total equates to about $10.4 million each. An independent inquiry by Justice Frank Iacobucci had reached the conclution that Canadian officials shared misleading information with foreign agencies that contributed ‘indirectly’ to their torture with foreign agencies. A formal apology by the Canadian prime minister was provided.
You have to wonder why this is not the case with the Allan Memorial controversial treatments?
The Canadian government has said that it is too late; too many former patients are dead, records are lost, the guilty are gone, and too much time has passed. But this was never the case with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission looking into the treatment of indigenous people in residential schools or the interment of the Japanese in the Second World War and their loss of property. Decades later, the Japanese and their decendants were offered compensation and a federal apology.
Is it because with the Allan Memorial you have the potential of hundreds of former patients and/or their descendants seeking damages?
Is it because those who appointed the Allan Memorial Board were tied to McGill University and the Royal Victoria Hospital?
Is it because too many people in powerful positions kept their mouths shut?
Or are there other darker, more sinister reasons…?
We live in a dangerous world; if ordinary citizens can be turned into subjects for brainwashing experiments, their lives ruined, their families driven into poverty, they deserve at the very least some answers – so far, there is only silence and a couple of well written non-fiction books. What is hidden behind the rocks of an old grey mansion on the slope of Mount Royal - what do we not know - and what do others know?