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Outremont NDP MP Tom Mulcair is promising to raise questions in the House of Commons this week about the possible complicity of Canadian Foreign Affairs employees, who allegedly provided assistance to a man accused of forcibly detaining a Canadian woman in Saudi Arabia, who wants desperately to return to Canada.
'Sure to be raised'
"We can't understand," what happened, Mulcair said in an interview with NPEN, referring to the case of Nathalie Morin. "That's why, in question period, you can be sure this is going to be raised."
For weeks, the NDP and its counterpart opposition party in Ottawa, the Bloc Québécois, were warning the minority Conservative government about the case of Morin, who moved to the Arabic nation four years ago to live with the man who was the father of her son.
Men privileged
Morin maintains she is now unable to return to Canada, partly because of her husband's manipulative and controlling behaviour, but also because of Saudi law, which confers enormous privileges upon him with regards to the whereabouts and custody of their children.
Last week, a voice recording of the 24-year-old woman pleading for her freedom was played during a press conference in Montreal, which was attended by members of the two parties. "I know I put myself in this situation, but I want to come back to Canada as soon as possible with my three children," Morin said in the recording, made during a phone conversation with her mother Johanne Durocher.
Beaten, she claims
Morin had to make the recording alone in a room without the knowledge of her husband. As it was being made, he apparently interrupted and the communication terminated abruptly. "We are intimidated, we are frightened," said Morin, in a voice strongly suggesting she's scared and agitated. "I am being beaten every three or four days.
"I am locked in for a year-and-a-half. I have no key. I am locked in. I don't have a right to use the telephone. When I go out, you can be sure that it is with him. When I have the right to use the telephone, it's because he's listening to the phone and he's not far." She eventually breaks down into tears.
Diplomatic leak?
The NDP, according to Mulcair, is putting pressure on Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon to take action. Morin's problems have been complicated by an alleged information leak, said to have originated within the Canadian diplomatic service in Saudia Arabia. Her supporters here claim that Morin's husband was made privy to information that could only have originated with Canadian embassy personnel.
While foreign embassies sometimes hire local people, Mulcair insists the informant at Foreign Affairs was a Canadian citizen. "Instead of helping, our embassy appears to be doing just the opposite," he said. "Mme Durocher, Nathalie Morin's mom, explained that the embassy had actually phoned the husband, the guy who's holding her prisoner, who beats her with great regularity.
'An abomination' – Mulcair
"The Canadian embassy actually phoned him to let him know that she was holding a press conference that day. We find that an abomination. The Canadian embassy is supposed to exist to protect the rights of Canadians and here they're doing just the opposite." According to Mulcair, it was proven later the same day of the press conference last week that contact was made by embassy staff.
Mulcair said the embassy made "a direct phone call to the husband, and when they questioned Mme Durocher how she could know, he said it wasn't complicated. He showed her daughter his cell phone call display and it showed that the Canadian embassy had called." Mulcair said the NDP and the Bloc are essentially calling on the Tory government to step in on behalf of Morin.
No women's rights
"The Canadian is using women's rights as the main reason for its involvement in Afghanistan, and here we have a Canadian woman being held against her will," he said. "She's a prisoner of her husband in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government does nothing, because of course Saudi Arabia doesn't recognize women's rights. A man gets to decide everything for his wife.
"We find that it's lamentable for the Canadian government to be acting that way," said Mulcair. "They should be doing something to defend her rights, the way Americans do, by the way. These cases have come up before in other countries, in other countries that have the same type of laws, and the Americans will always fight for their citizens. Canada doesn't seem to be doing anything for Nathalie Morin."