Canadian diplomats got sick serving their country in Cuba nearly a decade ago. Their spouses got sick. Their kids got sick. And in 2026, under Prime Minister Mark Carney, the federal government is still answering them with lawyers, a publication ban and a talking point that hasn’t changed in years.
Last month, Carney told reporters that Ottawa does have a duty of care to these diplomats and their families, and that he’d asked for a detailed briefing, according to The Globe and Mail. Weeks later, his own office was back to the old script. That gap between what the Prime Minister says and what his government does is the story.
What happened in Havana
Starting in 2017, Canadian foreign-service officers and their families posted to Havana began reporting symptoms after hearing an unusual vibrating noise at their homes in the evening. They reported nosebleeds, headaches, blurred vision, nausea, memory loss and mood changes. American diplomats in the city had reported the same thing starting in late 2016. The cluster of symptoms became known as Havana Syndrome.
Ten Canadian diplomats and their families sued the federal government. They allege Ottawa denied them leading-edge health care, withheld critical information and played down the seriousness of their symptoms. The Globe first reported on that lawsuit in 2019. Seven years later, it still isn’t resolved.
The kids are still paying for it
In October, four of those diplomats told The Globe what their families are still living with. They described sleep disorders, light sensitivity, depression, anxiety and tinnitus. One diplomat said both of their children developed ADHD symptoms during the posting. Their daughter was later found to have hyperacusis, a painful sensitivity to sound. Their son sometimes has to wear earplugs in class and has since developed dizziness and vertigo.
“We have no idea what the impact of a pulsed microwave weapon could have on the young developing brain and inner ears of our children,” one diplomat said. “It is still impacting their lives.”
Their lawyer, Paul Miller, said the families have run up significant out-of-pocket medical bills. “The government doesn’t care about them. They have left them out to dry,” he said.
Ottawa’s answer: secrecy
Rather than settle, the federal government went the other way. In 2025, the Justice Department invoked Section 38 of the Canada Evidence Act, a rarely used provision normally seen in terrorism cases and classified-information disputes. The court order sealing the case came in April 2025, a month after Carney became prime minister, and his government has kept it that way. The diplomats are now under a publication ban and can’t talk about their own lawsuit.
Miller called the move “a great delay tactic.” He also said his clients are frustrated by Ottawa’s unwillingness to settle. Then he summed it up bluntly: “I think the Canadian government is just so fearful of starting an international incident that they are willing to throw people under the bus.”
Meanwhile, Global Affairs Canada still leans on its February 2024 report, which said the illnesses “were not the result of any malicious act of a foreign power.” That report pinned the symptoms on “pre-existing medical conditions, environmental factors and conventional illnesses.” It told the diplomats to go through the standard federal workers’ compensation system and sent their children to provincial health plans. Miller says that system “was not set up for the types of injuries that were suffered by these diplomats.”
Washington paid. Ottawa stalled.
Compare that with how Washington handled the same crisis. The U.S. government arranged testing and treatment at first-class facilities and offered lifelong monitoring for affected diplomatic families. It cut its Havana staff by 60 per cent in September 2017 and evacuated spouses and children. Canada didn’t send its diplomats’ families home until April 2018.
This July, the U.S. government paid US$3 million to American diplomats, spies and military personnel affected by Havana Syndrome. It was the first payment under an act of Congress. Canada has made no such payment.
The evidence picture has also shifted. A 2024 joint investigation by CBS’s 60 Minutes, Der Spiegel and The Insider linked the illnesses to a radio-frequency energy weapon used by a Russian military intelligence unit. A former senior Global Affairs official told The Globe the department believed Russia was behind the attacks but couldn’t say so publicly without proof. The Globe has also reported, citing sources, that a Canadian diplomat in Havana was sharing intelligence with American spies at the time. Global Affairs denies that.
Same talking point, new Prime Minister
None of that has moved the Carney government’s public position. On Oct. 19, his deputy communications director told The Globe that “no definitive common cause could be identified for these health symptoms” and that investigators “found no evidence attributing the cause of these health symptoms to a foreign actor.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, for her part, described the diplomats’ health problems as a human-resources concern for her department. That is how this government talks about people who were injured serving Canada abroad.
The only movement so far is that Global Affairs now says it’s “open” to mediation and that the offer it tabled during the failed 2023 talks “remains available.” In other words, the same offer that went nowhere after two days of talks three years ago.
Duty of care means acting
Carney was right about one thing: Canada owes these families a duty of care. But a duty of care isn’t a briefing request or a sound bite. It means settling with people who have waited seven years, paying for the specialized care their children need and dropping the courtroom secrecy that keeps the public in the dark.
Former Canadian spies and retired senior security officials have called for an independent parliamentary examination of what happened in Havana and how Ottawa treated its own people afterward. If Carney meant what he said, he’d stop fighting these families and start answering for them.
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