When Ms. Durocher called back on the day in question, Mr. ElSouri had left on vacation for two weeks. So, Ms. Durocher had no choice but to return to Canada alone, without her daughter. On January 23, 2006, among the papers was a report written by Mr. ElSouri entitled “Change of travel plans”, in which he stated that Nathalie and Saeed had come to an agreement and that Nathalie had accepted the idea of giving birth in Saudi Arabia. He added that Nathalie was in control of her life, that she was able to get along with her husband and that she was sure she would be able to travel the following summer with her two children.
Five days later, on January 28, Mr. ElSouri forwarded to Ms. Lavigueur, in Ottawa, a letter written by Nathalie in which she asked Foreign Affairs to no longer discuss her case with her mother, saying that she was old enough to know what she was doing. However, in the affidavit written by Nathalie in July of 2009, of which you have a copy, she discusses this incident on page 2. She says that the letter was written in the presence of Mr. ElSouri, his wife and Saeed in a restaurant in Al Khobar. She states that they told her it would be better if her mother did not involve herself in her personal affairs. They convinced her to write that letter. They even told her to put a false date on the letter.
When we checked the embassy notes, we did, in fact, see that the date on the letter did not jibe with the date when Mr. ElSouri had reportedly met with Nathalie and Saeed. He states that he met with them on February 9, which suggests that Nathalie did not draft a letter in his presence. As a result of Nathalie's letter, Ms. Durocher was not able to involve herself in her daughter's case, and her daughter subsequently gave birth to Abdullah in Saudi Arabia in June, 2006. She was never able to return to Canada with her two boys after giving birth, as promised by Saeed.
After Abdullah was born, Nathalie became increasingly depressed. Her living conditions deteriorated and she was in poor health. Nathalie again gave her consent to disclose information to her mother in September. In October of 2006, Saeed agreed to take Nathalie to the embassy, but without the children. From there, consular officials organized her departure through Bahrain, a neighbouring country, and back to Montreal. Following her departure, there was an exchange of e-mails between Ottawa and the embassy. Here is an excerpt from an e-mail dated October 19:
When I last spoke with her just prior to her departure for Bahrain, I recommended she erase the past five years and become a 17-year-old again. She realizes she will miss the children but wants to get on with her life. If anybody is pushing for repatriation of the children, it is Johanne, not Nathalie. Once Nathalie gets a life in Montreal--and away from her mother--she might think again of having the children, but I don't think we will see it in the near future. ...Maybe we will get the kids to Canada to be with their high school-educated 22-year-old unemployed mother. Maybe--just maybe--the children are better off here.
Six weeks after her return to Canada, Nathalie got on a plane again, unbeknownst to her mother, to be with her children again in Saudi Arabia. She left a note on the kitchen table saying that she did not know whether she would ever be able to return to Canada, but that she was sacrificing herself for her children.
In June of 2008, Nathalie sent an e-mail to the Canadian embassy outlining her first complaint of mistreatment. In the days that followed, February 19, 2008, she sent similar complaints to several human rights organizations in Saudi Arabia. In June of 2008, the embassy organized a consular visit to Jubail to meet with Nathalie and Saeed. Nathalie was pregnant with her third child, as a result of unwanted and violent sexual relations forced on her by Saeed. In other words, she had been raped. Following that visit, we requested a copy of the report on several occasions. The only information that we had was through the Saudi media, which presented Saeed's side of the story. We finally received that report in the Foreign Affairs' notes we obtained through Access to Information in July of 2009, one year later. I invite you to read it. It speaks volumes about Nathalie and her children's living conditions.
This is one of several documents I would like to make available to you. It is written in English.
Despite our continuing to pressure the Department, so that Nathalie could return to Canada to give birth, Nathalie gave birth to her daughter, Sara, in Saudi Arabia on November 18, 2009. Three days before she gave birth, however, Saeed was prepared to take Nathalie and the children to the embassy in Riyad. Nathalie called the consular officer, Mr. Nicolas Gauthier, to ask him to receive them. We also wrote to Minister Cannon, asking him to intervene so that the embassy would provide shelter to Nathalie and her children while it negotiated their departure with Saudi authorities; but our efforts were in vain. Mr. Gauthier sent a text message to Nathalie saying that it would be better for her physical and psychological health, that she give birth in Saudi Arabia. Yet they had ample evidence of the mistreatment Saeed was inflicting on them. Nathalie recounted that episode on page 3 of her affidavit.
On December 22, 2008, Mr. Deepak Obhrai, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, went to Saudi Arabia and met with Nathalie and Saeed. There again, Foreign Affairs did not inform us of that visit. At that point, Ms. Durocher had had no contact with her daughter for several weeks. She was therefore unaware that her daughter had received this important visit by a Canadian official. We would only hear about it subsequently through the Saudi newspapers.
Ms. Durocher was told by Ms. Huda Alsunnari, counsel for the Saudi Arabian Human Rights Commission, who was present at the meeting, that Nathalie was crying and asked Mr. Obhrai that she be allowed to return to Canada with him, saying that her life was a living hell. Mr. Obhrai said that he knew about her circumstances and had come to try and find a solution with her husband. He then spoke to Saeed in English only. Later the Canadian media questioned Mr. Obhrai about that visit. In response to the question: “How was Nathalie when you met with her?”, he said: “Nothing stood out of concern to me”. In that regard, we refer you to the report of Mr. Obhrai's visit in the Foreign Affairs notes dated December 24, 2008 and Nathalie's account of what occurred on page 3 of her affidavit.
On September 22, 2009, embassy officials went to see Nathalie, at Saeed's request.