Quebec's Court of Appeal is reviewing a request by survivors and families to overturn a decision saying foreign governments can't be sued for events in the 1940s to 1960s.
A lawyer for the United States government told Quebec’s Court of Appeal on Thursday that the country should be immune from prosecution for the infamous brainwashing experiments at McGill University from the 1940s to the 1960s.
The U.S. government says it cannot be sued for the project known as MK-ULTRA — allegedly funded by the Canadian government and the CIA — because foreign states had absolute immunity from lawsuits in Canada during that period.
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The court case stems from a class-action lawsuit filed against McGill University, Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital and the Canadian and U.S. governments after Montrealers were allegedly given experimental drugs, rounds of electroshocks, and deprived of sleep for weeks.
Last August, the Quebec Superior Court granted a request from the United States government to be dismissed from the case, and survivors and their families appealed that decision.
Class-action lawyer Jeff Orenstein says he believes Canada’s 1982 State Immunity Act, which outlines how foreign states can be sued in the country, is retroactive and can apply in this case.
The class action alleges that the government of Canada funded psychiatric treatments by Dr. Ewen Cameron at the Allan Memorial Institute between 1948 and 1964 that were allegedly part of the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program of covert mind-control.
