{"id":549839,"date":"2026-03-20T21:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T21:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/549839\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T21:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T21:41:13","slug":"ottawa-stands-by-havana-syndrome-report-as-u-s-reconsiders-foreign-role-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/549839\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa stands by \u2018Havana syndrome\u2019 report as U.S. reconsiders foreign role – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

The federal government is standing by its conclusion that the mysterious illnesses known as \u201cHavana syndrome<\/a>\u201d were not caused by an attack by a foreign actor, despite U.S. officials acknowledging that their own, similar conclusions were based on \u201cflawed\u201d intelligence.<\/a><\/p>\n

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The statement from Global Affairs Canada was given to Global News on Friday, a day after the leaders of America\u2019s top intelligence and law enforcement agencies unanimously testified to Congress that the U.S. intelligence community\u2019s assessments should be retracted.<\/p>\n

Global Affairs Canada\u2019s 2024 report<\/a> into what it called \u201cunidentified health incidents\u201d experienced by Canadian diplomats serving in Cuba cited one of those U.S. assessments from 2023, which concluded it\u2019s \u201cvery unlikely\u201d a foreign actor was behind the debilitating symptoms that also struck hundreds of U.S. foreign service and military personnel abroad.<\/p>\n

The Canadian report similarly said the incidents \u201cwere not the result of a malicious act of a foreign actor\u201d and that\u00a0pre-existing medical conditions, environmental factors and conventional illnesses \u201cwere likely to have been important factors in many of the symptoms experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cGAC stands by its 2024 report \u2026 which concluded that no definitive common cause\u00a0could be identified for the health symptoms experienced by employees and their dependants in Havana,\u201d department spokesperson John Babcock said in an email.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognize the impact this issue has had on our employees and their families, as well as on the broader GAC and partner department communities. GAC remains committed to assisting staff members and dependants impacted by any health symptoms, with employee and dependant well-being remaining a departmental priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than a dozen Canadian diplomats and family members are suing the federal government after they say they experienced symptoms such as headaches, memory loss, mood changes, vision problems, nausea and nosebleeds in Havana beginning in early 2017.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tU.S. \u2018Havana syndrome\u2019 reports raise concerns, Canadian diplomats\u2019 lawyer says\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The lawsuit \u2014 which remains unresolved seven years after it was first filed in 2019 \u2014 alleges Ottawa failed to protect the victims, hid crucial information and downplayed the seriousness of the risks. The government has denied negligence and wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

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The plaintiffs\u2019 lawyer, Paul Miller, told Global News in a recent interview that the department has not followed up with victims \u2014 including children \u2014 and has questioned the way the Canadian investigation was handled.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI have never believed one thing Global Affairs has told us,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have always thought from our perspective, from council\u2019s perspective, that Canada could not come out and do anything or say anything without the U.S. first\u2026. Because if it was a foreign actor that did this, it is an act of war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tU.S. intelligence under scrutiny\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

During a hearing Thursday at the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, chairman Rep. Rick Crawford said the intelligence underlying the U.S. assessments was \u201cflawed\u201d and that agencies including the CIA and U.S. National Institutes of Health manipulated evidence to achieve a desired outcome.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPut simply, it\u2019s my clear opinion that individuals in the intelligence community were involved in a coverup,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Asked by Crawford if the latest U.S. intelligence community assessment from last year should be retracted, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard \u2014 whose office is conducting a review of the investigation \u2014 said \u201cyes.\u201d Officials including CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel agreed.<\/p>\n

Crawford\u2019s committee released a report in December 2024 that concluded it is \u201cincreasingly likely\u201d a foreign adversary is responsible for \u201csome portion\u201d of the incidents.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, he cited recent media reports that have found an alleged link between Havana syndrome and Russia.<\/p>\n

A 60 Minutes\u00a0investigation this month alleged a covert device created by Russia may be behind the incidents, and that the U.S. government has acquired such a device and tested it on U.S. soil.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHavana syndrome: Report links Russia with mysterious illness\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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Babcock said the Global Affairs Canada report \u201cfollowed years of exhaustive investigations into the reported incidents and symptoms\u201d by the RCMP, the Nova Scotia Health Authority and brain health researchers at Dalhousie University, along with an environmental assessment and \u201ccollaboration with studies led by the U.S. government.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The report makes no mention of testing that was being done at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Brain Injury and Repair, which the Canadian lawsuit says was testing American victims as well as Canadians in 2017.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit alleges Ottawa used U.S. diplomatic channels to tell the Pennsylvania researchers to \u201cstop the testing of Canadians,\u201d which Miller said was due to \u201cnational security reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tWhat did the Canadian report say?\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The report outlines the steps taken after a\u00a0multi-agency Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, led by the RCMP, opened an investigation in June 2017.<\/p>\n

Global Affairs and RCMP officials began travelling regularly to Cuba as part of the investigation to look at the possibility of malicious attacks, the report says. Canadian officials also shared information with foreign partners, including the U.S.<\/p>\n

In 2019, instruments designed to detect and capture evidence of acoustic and radiation surges, and to measure environmental effects \u2014 such as temperature, humidity, barometric pressure and ozone levels \u2014 were installed in the living quarters of Canadian staff in\u00a0Havana.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe data collected from the instruments did not provide relevant and probative information to identify a cause for the symptoms,\u201d the Global Affairs report says. \u201cAs such, in 2022, the instruments were removed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The integrated national security team concluded \u201cthere was no criminality and no evidence attributing these health symptoms to a foreign actor,\u201d the report adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn their conclusions, the RCMP and other domestic partner agencies assess that there is no known criminality, no known attribution for (unexplained health incidents) and no patterns related to symptoms, age, gender, location, or other variable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The RCMP indicated that \u201csince no criminality was uncovered, its criminal investigation would be concluded,\u201d and CSIS advised it also would be wrapping up its investigations for similar reasons, the Global Affairs report says.<\/p>\n

Overall, the Canadian efforts \u201chave not uncovered a clear common cause of the symptoms experienced by government of Canada employees,\u201d the report adds. \u201cCanada\u2019s findings are aligned with the conclusions of the United States on their various health studies and the security report published by the National Intelligence Council.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 with files from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government is standing by its conclusion that the mysterious illnesses known as \u201cHavana syndrome\u201d were not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,26209,213809,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-549839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-global-affairs-canada","12":"tag-havana-syndrome","13":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}