All right.
I would like to give you the background behind our intervention.
Once again, I am an assistant to the member of Parliament, Ms. Francine Lalonde.
The mother of Nathalie Morin, Ms. Johanne Durocher, contacted our office at the end of March, 2008. We have therefore been working on this case for almost two years now.
With the help of documents forwarded to us by Ms. Durocher, we quickly ascertained that Nathalie was not in fact married. Ms. Durocher had documents in Arabic that she had brought back from her first trip to Saudi Arabia in 2006. We had them translated, and realized that what was supposed to be their marriage certificate was actually a marriage confirmation certification referring to a marriage that had apparently taken place in Montreal in 2001. But Ms. Durocher told us categorically that Nathalie never married in Montreal in 2001. Furthermore, at the time, Nathalie was a minor; she was 17 years of age. She would have required her parents' permission in order to marry. Following an inquiry, the Office of the Registrar of Civil Status in Quebec confirmed that Nathalie had never married in Quebec.
We then discovered that, when Nathalie went to Saudi Arabia in 2003, the Saudi embassy in Ottawa had issued a spouse's visa and a visa for her son, Samir, in the name of the father, Al Bishi—to avoid any confusion, I just want to mention that, at the time, his name was Al Bishi, and that he changed his name to Al Shahrani as soon as he returned to Saudi Arabia—when, in actual fact, no father was named on Samir's Quebec birth certificate. His name was Morin, like his mother.
Armed with this new information, we contacted officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs to tell them that there had been a mistake, that Nathalie was not married and that she should therefore not be subject to decisions made by Mr. Saeed Al Bishi regarding her return to Canada with her children. Foreign Affairs officials told us, however, that whatever her actual status, the Saudis consider them to be married. As a result, we had to abide by their laws and, in this case, the husband's permission was required. We were also told to keep this information to ourselves, because in Saudi Arabia, that meant that Nathalie was living illegally and could potentially be put in prison. As a result, we kept this information to ourselves for a number of months, even though that did not prevent us from continuing to pressure the Canadian government to negotiate their return with Saudi authorities, as we had received serious allegations of mistreatment, forcible confinement and abuse inflicted on Nathalie and her children.
The events I am about to relate here were first reported to me by Ms. Durocher. Following that, Nathalie related them in a similar fashion, but in greater detail, in the affidavit that Mr. Julius Grey asked her to write in the summer of 2009—you will find this in the documents you have been given and which were translated into both official languages. The two versions say exactly the same thing in each language. Then, following an access to information request that I filed with the Department of Foreign Affairs, I received almost 2,000 pages of notes on the case, corroborating Nathalie's and her mother's version of events, although presenting the issues from the standpoint of the government. I would like to relate some of those events now, with supporting documents, hoping that you will agree to receive them.
I would now like to discuss what happened in January of 2006. First of all, I should mention, once again, that Nathalie went to Saudi Arabia in March of 2005 with the intention of living there. In December of 2005, when Nathalie was pregnant with her second child, her mother went to visit her and saw that her daughter had been beaten and mistreated by Mr. Al Shahrani—he even beat her in front of Ms. Durocher. They filed a complaint with the Canadian embassy in Riyad.
At the embassy, Mr. ElSouri told Ms. Durocher to call him back two days later and that he would find a way to get Nathalie and Samir back to Canada. When Ms. Durocher called back on the day in question--