By Survivors Allied Against Government Abuse

There has never been an official acknowledgment on the part of the Canadian Government that unspeakable, clandestine experiments occurred and the Canadian Government has never admitted responsibility.

In March 2023, attorneys Andrea Grass and Jeff Orenstein from Consumer Law Group, a Montreal-based law firm, presented a groundbreaking appeal to Quebec’s highest Court, the Quebec Court of appeal, to remove U.S. immunity for the CIA’s role in funding secret Cold War psychological experiments at a former psychiatric hospital in Montreal during the 1950s and 60s as part of the classified behavior modification program codenamed MK-ULTRA.

The appeal followed a class action lawsuit filed in 2019 in Quebec Superior Court, on behalf of victims and family members who suffered in Canadian Government- funded covert psychological experiments at the Allan Memorial Institute between 1948 and 1964.

In March 2021, lawyers from Gowling WLG’s Toronto office, representing the US Government, filed a motion claiming the US had immunity from lawsuits in Canada at the time of the experiments as defined by Canada’s State Immunity Act. The motion was later heard and won in August 2022.

Montreal attorney, Jeff Orenstein, presented strong arguments against the US Government and the Quebec Superior Court’s ruling at an appeal hearing in March 2023 at the Quebec Court of Appeal.

Orenstein’s appeal is based on a change in Canadian law as outlined in Canada’s 1982 State Immunity Act stipulating that foreign states can be sued in cases of bodily injury. Unlike the British and European immunity acts, which clearly state that their policies are not retroactive, the US and Canadian immunity acts do not specify whether their policies can apply to prior instances that occurred before the law was enacted. Orenstein argues the ambiguous Canadian law is in fact retroactive and can apply to cases before the statute was passed. The lack of a retrospectivity clause in Canada’s State Immunity Act was a deliberate omission, Orenstein argues, since the statute was intended to apply to past abuses.

Orenstein’s argument is compelling and is now before a panel of three Quebec judges.

If they decide in favour of retroactivity, hundreds of victims across Canada could finally be able to sue for damages suffered under the secret MKULTRA program.

Even under the old law, Orenstein believes victims would still be able to pursue the matter in Canadian Courts, including the Supreme Court. He argues that existing exemptions for commercial-activity lawsuits could apply in Canada, since the Montreal Experiments involved a funding agreement between private parties. The CIA used a front organization, the Institute for the Study of Human Ecology, in contracting with McGill University for access to unwitting patients.

In direct violation of the Nuremberg Code, unsuspecting Canadians were used as guinea pigs and experimented on without their consent while under the impression that they were receiving medically sound therapy. Patients were subjected to ‘depatterning treatment’ intended to wipe out their memory using heavy doses of barbiturates and psychedelic drugs combined with high levels of ECT’s, sensory deprivation and prolonged sleep induced comas. Then ‘psychic driving’ was used to re-program patients’ minds and instill new thoughts and behaviors using repeated, continuous pre-recorded audio tape looped messages – most often single statements that patients were exposed to hundreds of thousands of times. As a result of these ‘treatments’, patients developed severe amnesia, were reduced to a child-like state, and left unable to properly function for the remainder of their lives.

Families of victims were also severely impacted by the loss of parents — some effectively became orphans or witnessed the suicide of their principal caregiver. McGill and its partners in crime abandoned these families and refused to comply with a US government order to contact the victims and inform them of the nature of the program.

MK-ULTRA consisted of 149 Subprojects. At least one of the programs, Subproject 68, took place at the Allan Memorial Institute from 1957-1964. Designed to create effective brainwashing techniques for psychological warfare, the project was supervised and overseen by CIA contractor and psychiatrist, Dr. Ewen Cameron, also the Allan Memorial Institute’s Director.

For far too long Canada’s State Immunity Act has protected foreign states, like the US, from being prosecuted for major crimes. Illegal activity, such as Subproject 68, can easily be swept under the rug, or hidden under the guise of ‘immunity’. However, due to Consumer Law Group’s diligent legal research, immunity may no longer be used as a defence against criminal charges. It has now come to light that victims and their family members have a case against the US Government who merely operates as if the CIA has carte blanche on foreign soil.

These egregious military mind-control experiments, which amount to some of the most severe violations of medical ethics and human rights, went on to serve as the basis for the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Manual, essentially the CIA’s textbook on torture.

We are SAAGA, Survivors Allied Against Government Abuse. Our group, which is now comprised of hundreds of members and is still growing, first came together in February 2018, along with our lead plaintiff, Julie Tanny, motivated by a demand for an apology, justice, and compensation regarding some of the most horrific, undisclosed government experiments in Canadian history. After many decades, we are finding out that victims and their family members may indeed have a right to compensation after years of quiet settlements, nondisclosure agreements, and a lack of recognition of victims’ rights within the law. We are now seeing arguments made by Consumer Law Group that, after all this time, affirm the suffering and bodily damages inflicted upon Survivors of Subproject 68, many of whom are no longer alive today to witness this ground-breaking legal event. The outcome of this landmark case could be a significant step towards ensuring that those affected by MK-ULTRA, such as the members of our group, are finally able to receive the justice and compensation that they deserve.

SAAGA is determined to bring our untold story to light and hold the Canadian Government and their accomplices: the Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University, and the US Attorney General, accountable.

Relevant links:

SAAGA website

saagaclassaction.ca

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Consumer Law Group Website

consumerlawgroup.ca/Class-Action/List-of-Class-Actions/Allan-Memorial-Institute-Experiments-Class-Action