Victims of CIA-linked Montreal brainwashing experiments cleared to sue in class action

A Quebec Superior Court judge has authorized a class-action lawsuit brought forward by victims of brainwashing experiments conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal — experiments infamous for their affiliation with the CIA-funded MK-Ultra program.

The lawsuit names the Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University and the Government of Canada as defendants. It alleges that the government funded, and the Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill University enabled, "depatterning treatments" that violated the patients' bodies and minds.

The patients who submitted the class-action request claimed that the Cold War-era experiments, conducted by Dr. Ewen Cameron at the Allan Memorial Institute and known as the Montreal Experiments, were carried out without their consent or even their knowledge.

Judge Dominique Poulin said in her decision, issued Thursday, that two of the three applicants for a class action met the criteria to bring forward the lawsuit. 

She authorized the two patients, Julie Tanny and Lana Ponting, to represent all persons who underwent depatterning treatments at the Allan Memorial Institute between 1948 and 1964 and their successors, family members and dependents.

Poulin's approval of the class action means the case can proceed. The patients were seeking punitive and compensatory damages for the harm they say they experienced as a result of the experiments. Poulin authorized the patients and their families to seek compensation, but not punitive damages. 

Depatterning, described in the lawsuit and also a central topic of a 2020 CBC podcast and report titled Brainwashed: The echoes of MK-ULTRA, was among the experimental treatments conducted on patients at the Allan Memorial Institute. 

It sought to "erase a patient's thoughts" first by immobilizing them, rendering them helpless while subjecting them to electric shocks, sensory isolation and massive amounts of sedatives and barbiturates. 

Depatterning was followed, according to the class-action lawsuit, by a "repatterning procedure" during which patients were subjected to looped audio messages often while under the effects of paralytic drugs. 

The messages first repeated a negative feeling the patient had expressed about themselves, like "you are selfish," followed by a positive statement like "you are lovable," repeated between 250,000 to 500,000 times. 

WATCH | CBC investigation into MK-Ultra experiments: 

Brainwashed29:34Episode 3: EXPOSING MKULTRA

Communist brainwashing, mind control experiments, a government cover up... MKULTRA sounds like the stuff of conspiracy theories or science fiction. But it was real. John Marks, author of The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, and Stephen Kinzer, author of Poisoner in Chief, reveal the shocking details of the bizarre and expansive secret CIA project. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/brainwashed-transcripts-listen-1.5734335

The patients intend to argue that the Montreal Experiments consisted of unlawful human experimentation, "enabled by the Government of Canada as well as by the Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill University." 

They also intend to argue that the three institutions are liable for damages they suffered as a result of these experiments. 

Poulin said the factual allegations presented by the patients are "taken as true." 

Poulin's approval of the class action noted that the patients' burden at this stage of the proceedings is not onerous. They only needed to demonstrate a "mere possibility of success on the merits of the case, nothing more."

Cameron, the Scottish doctor who oversaw the Montreal Experiments, began conducting psychiatric experiments early in his career. In 1943, he was invited to set up a research laboratory at the Allan Memorial Institute, located in a mansion on the slopes of Mount Royal formerly known as Ravenscrag.

That property is now the subject of a dispute between McGill University, which wants to expand its downtown Montreal campus onto the land, and the Kanien'kehá:ka Kahnistensera, who allege the potential presence of human remains on the grounds.

Cameron gained a reputation as a respected psychiatrist who, at one point in his career, held the title of head of the Canadian and American psychiatric associations and even the World Psychiatric Association.

The McGill University Health Centre has previously said Cameron acted independently and was not considered by law to be an employee of the Royal Victoria Hospital.

Cameron also researched on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency, which, between 1957 and 1960, paid him $60,000 US, equivalent to more than $500,000 today.

But Cameron's experiments, often conducted on vulnerable subjects, repeatedly showed a callous disregard for the well-being of his patients and informed torture techniques used by the CIA for decades.  

To read and hear more about the Montreal Experiments, check out Brainwashed: The echoes of MK-ULTRA.