[ ♪♪ ]
[ ♪♪ ]
>> Bob: It's like something
from a Hollywood horror movie.
A hospital where patients are
given massive doses of drugs
like LSD,
intensive shock therapy,
put to sleep for
months at a time.
>> I was reduced to a baby,
and wearing diapers and being
fed and, you know...
I can't imagine it.
I don't remember that,
thank goodness, because it would
haunt me in my dreams.
>> Bob: But at Montreal's
Allan Memorial Institute,
the nightmare was all too real
and incredibly what happened
there was secretly supported
by the US Central Intelligence
Agency and the
Canadian government.
>> It just doesn't make sense
that you can take a mother away
from her children and ruin her
life and that other people won't
be affected too.
>> Bob: I'm Bob McKeown.
On this Fifth Estate,
we investigate what the
Government of Canada kept
hidden for decades and what
they're still trying to hide.
[ ♪♪ ]
[ Echoing Laughter ]
[ ♪♪ ]
>> Bob: It was 1964 and
five-year-old Diane McIntosh
couldn't wait when her father
said they were going for a drive
to visit her mother
who was in the hospital.
>> My dad used to let me sit
on his knee and steer the car,
and so that was play.
[ ♪♪ ]
>> Bob: On each visit, their car
would turn onto the long drive
leading through the
hospital grounds to the
Allan Memorial Institute
at McGill University in
Montreal, a psychiatric facility
with the best reputation
in the country.
More than half a century later
Diane still remembers what she
saw then as if it
were yesterday.
Because when they
got to the hospital door,
her enthusiasm turned to horror.
>> When we got there the
place was just like a scene from
'One Flew Over The
Cuckoo's Nest' ,
there were people banging
their heads on the walls
and droning, and my
mother was sitting there
completely drugged up,
and even as a child I knew
that she wasn't right.
>> Bob: What they didn't know
at the time was that her mother,
Helene McIntosh, and
hundreds of others like her,
were unwitting guinea pigs in
brutal psychiatric experiments
that took place at the
Allan Institute under the
code name, MKUltra.
Massive drug regimens
enforced prolonged sleep,
intensive electroshock.
Largely funded by the Canadian
government and the American CIA.
No consent was ever
asked from the patients,
and no explanation of
the experiments was ever
given to them.
The MKUltra brainwashing
project got its start in the
early days of the
Cold War when some
Canadian and American
soldiers returning from
the conflict in Korea
expressed sympathy for
their communist enemies.
At a time of paranoia about
the so-called 'Red Menace',
the Americans believed the
Soviets and Chinese might well
have devised an effective
brainwashing method and the CIA
was determined to crack it as
ex-CIA officer John Gittinger
told the Fifth Estate in 1980.
>> So we were charged with
rather an elaborate attempt to
try to find out chemical,
psychological, any kind
of means, that people
could use to influence the
behaviour of the people.
>> Bob: But the CIA knew it
could be politically difficult
to fund brainwashing
directly so it set up
a front company to do it,
euphemistically called
The Society For The
Investigation Of Human Ecology.
>> These are the days and
hours are the occasions...
>> Bob: And they found a
prominent scholar doing related
research in Montreal,
the renowned psychiatrist,
Dr. Ewen Cameron.
Co-founder of The World
Psychiatric Association,
those who worked with Cameron
called him domineering and more.
>> He was an authoritarian...
..ruthless, power hungry,
nervous, tense, angry, man.
Not very nice.
>> And it is his mind, no less,
which may destroy mankind.
>> Bob: Over the years,
in addition to CIA funding,
Dr. Cameron received Canadian
Government research grants worth
well over $4 million today for
experiments on what was called
psychic driving
and de-patterning.
Attempts to erase negative
memories from the human mind
and replace them
with new positive ones.
So it was that in 1962,
a 23-year-old mother of two,
Helene McIntosh, was referred
to Ewen Cameron for what she
thought would be a
time out from the pressures
of motherhood and marriage.
>> They promised me
that I would get rested.
I was told that I would be
looked after in the hospital.
>> Bob: Depressed after
the birth of her second child,
her GP recommended Dr. Cameron.
No one told her she would
be part of a radical science
project with a full menu
of experimental treatments.
Shock.
Drugs like LSD.
Months of induced sleep
with recordings bombarding
her subconscious 24/7.
After all that, Helene McIntosh
says she effectively became an
infant again.
>> That was hell.
It really was.
It's something that
you can't describe.
And when I start talking
about it, I start shaking.
My body shakes.
It's like my body is saying,
"Don't go there."
>> Bob: Today, Helene has
only a few scattered memories
of her years at the Allan.
>> Electroshock and a picture
of Dr. Cameron and...
But I do remember him.
I remember his
voice very clearly.
>> Bob: What you
remember about him?
>> He sat me in front of a group
of medical students or doctors
that were doing the
residency and he said,
"This woman is
hopelessly incurable."
And that was it.
And he was so cold.
>> Bob: But through all
of that, her young daughter,
Diane, raised by grandparents,
lived for those special times
when her mother got the
chance to spend a few hours
with her girls.
[ ♪♪ ]
>> I remember when she was
able to come out for a visit
and she would be able to
come over and tuck me in
at my granny's place and
I would just lie there...
immobile after she left and
when granny would come
in to say goodnight, I'd say,
"Don't touch the covers,
"don't touch the covers,
don't change it because mum left
"it this way", and I tried
to sleep all night without
moving the--
moving the covers.
[ ♪♪ ]
>> Bob: In all,
Helene McIntosh spent
two years at the
Allan Institute.
Most of her memories erased
like data on a hard drive.
[ ♪♪ ]
>> That's you.
>> Yeah.
Look how dark my hair is.
I don't think that's--
>> Bob: Today, at home
in British Columbia,
much of the McIntosh family
album is a mystery to Helene.
Now it's Diane who must guide
her mom through the images of
the past she no
longer remembers.
>> There is Carolynn.
So they're not in order.
>> No, that is me.
>> That's you.
Of course.
>> Bob: It is clear
that in different ways,
both McIntoshs are victims of
that secret brainwashing project
in Montreal and they
are far from alone.
[ ♪♪ ]
>> Bob: Hundreds of victims
passed through these doors
in the 1950s and '60s.
All with her own horror stories.
>> I feel like I've
been completely used.
I feel like my mind has
been completed invaded.
>> I had to be toilet trained.
I was a vegetable.
I had no identity,
I had no memory,
I had never existed
in the world before,
just like a baby.
>> I suffered.
I suffered like hell.
>> My mother had to
stay with me all the time.
She couldn't leave me one hour.
>> Bob: Five decades later,
the Government Of Canada has
been more deeply
involved in all this
than it wants to admit,
with new secret settlements,
shutting down lawsuits
and gag orders,
and as you will
see after the break,
it is not something they
want you to know about.
>> The government
doesn't seem to do anything.
They don't recognize you.
It's wrong.
It's shameful.
[ ♪♪ ]
>> The story doesn't end here.
Like the Fifth Estate's
Facebook page so you can
follow our investigations.
We will post updates
on stories and special
video features that
take you deep inside.
[ ♪♪ ]
[ ♪♪ ]
>> Bob: From 1950
until the mid-60s,
Montreal's respected
psychiatric facility,
the Allan Memorial Institute,
was the site of secret
brainwashing experiments
funded by the CIA under the
code-name MKUltra,
with money from the
Canadian government as well.
The program would quietly
be shut down in 1965.
[ ♪♪ ]
>> Bob: But the truth about
what happened there would be
protected for another
decade and a half longer.
Then, in 1980, we were among
the first to tell Canadians
about it.
>> The Fifth Estate.
>> I'm Adrienne Clarkson.
Tonight, we report on a secret
CIA research project carried out
in Montreal in which mental
patients felt they were used
as the CIA's guinea pigs.
>> They kept you asleep for 23
days and while I was asleep,
they were shocking the heck
out of me with electric shocks.
>> Bob: And the Fifth Estate
stayed on the story for
years to come.
From then, to now,
many of the key questions
have remained the same.
>> The Fifth Estate.
>> So why was Ottawa so
ambiguous when it came to
helping some Canadian citizens
get compensation from Washington
for what they endured in a
program that was inspired mostly
by American Cold War fears?
Well, the answer was simple.
The Government Of Canada was
even more deeply involved in the
Allan Memorial experiments
than the Americans.
[ ♪♪ ]
>> Get away.
>> Calm down.
>> No, get off.
Hey!
>> Hold him!
>> Bob: After word of
the experiments at the
Allan Memorial Institute
came out, the CBC broadcast
a drama entitled
'The Sleep Room' about
Dr Ewen Cameron's
mind control treatments.
In the absence of visual
evidence inside the hospital,
it is as close as we can come
to how it looked and sounded.
[ ♪♪ ]
>> Natalie.
[ Screaming ]
>> Driving doesn't work.
Can you admit that now?
We destroyed these
people for nothing!
You can't just walk away
from this, Cameron!
It'll come back
and it will ruin you!
>> Many of them were just
sitting there like zombies
and I have a headache.
I don't remember anything.
>> Bob: Gina Blasbalg was 15
and in an orphanage when she
was sent to the Allan.
She got massive drug doses
and was kept asleep for months,
fortunately she never
received electroshock therapy,
which may explain why she
remembers the real Dr Cameron
and his patients.
How did those patients regard,
or apparently regard,
Dr Cameron?
>> Those patients
were too far gone.
The ones that were not too
far gone where terrified of him.
We were all terrified
to see him around.
We didn't want to be near him.
I don't think that any
patient ever wanted to
be close to Dr Cameron.
>> Bob: When news of Cameron's
experiments was revealed,
nine of the Canadian victims
filed a lawsuit against the
Central Intelligence Agency
alleging they had been
unwittingly used in research
that was medically improper,
even illegal.
Plaintiff, Velma Orlikow,
of Winnipeg,
didn't think they
stood a chance.
>> I've often when I
have been alone at home,
thought, how can
you fight the CIA?
Who in the heck do
you think you are?
How can you fight the CIA?
>> Bob: But eventually
in the late '80s,
David got a
concession from Goliath.
The CIA settled with the
Canadian patients for about
$90,000 apiece.
A moral victory, at least.
And a few years after
that, in the '90s,
the Government Of Canada
announced its own compensation
plan but only for the most
seriously injured victims.
Those who survived
the experiments in
a childlike state.
The government also
insisted it had no legal
or moral obligations to do it.
To many, that system
seemed designed not
to distribute compensation,
but to discourage it.
In the end, only 80 of the
patients subjected to the
brutal psychiatric
experiments were approved
for federal compensation.
Another 250 were denied and who
knows how many more never even
knew the compensation
program existed?
So when the application
deadline came and went,
and it was too late to apply,
the government's secret
brainwashing program
simply faded into the past.
Or did it?
[ ♪♪ ]
>> Bob: The government deadline
expired 23 years ago and the
majority of survivors
had already passed away.
When a few weeks back,
CBC News reporter,
Elizabeth Thompson,
was pouring over government
financial records.
Buried deep within those 2017
public accounts was an item
about a mysterious payment
linked to those brainwashing
experiments years ago.
>> It talked about, you know,
compensation for someone
who had been depatterned at
the Allan Memorial Institute.
>> Bob: 'Name Withheld' it said.
No other information about
the victim was available.
But with some digging,
Elizabeth Thompson would
learn the Trudeau
government had prevented
the victim's family
from ever discussing
the settlement.
Thompson discovered the
'Name Withheld' was that of
Allison Steel.
She's the daughter
of Jean Steel,
who arrived at the
Allan Institute in 1957
with a severe case of
postpartum depression.
Today, Allison Steel sill
can't discuss the settlement,
but she can talk
about her mother.
She says she effectively was
raised without a mom after Jean
became a Cameron patient
and the years of drugs,
sleep therapy, and electroshock.
>> It's erasing your memory.
I mean, how dare they do
that to a human being?
How dare they do
that to a human being?
>> Bob: According to Allison,
the result was that when Jean
eventually returned home,
behind her lovely smile,
she was intellectually
and emotionally absent.
Her marriage and
family relationships
irretrievably broken.
Allison's family had been
trying to get compensation,
and failing, for decades.
In 1993, Allison's father's
application was officially
denied in writing after the
government wouldn't give
him the hospital records he
needed to prove his wife had
been medically tortured.
>> I have a big thick file of
all his handwritten letters
back and forth to
the government...
declaring, stating all of the
treatments that, you know,
all the things that
had happened to her.
But we didn't
have the main file.
>> Bob: And then
the years went by.
First, Allison's mother,
Jean, died and her father
passed away at 93.
His quest to have the federal
government do what's right for
victims like Jean,
still unfulfilled.
But two years ago,
a breakthrough.
Allison made an official
request for her mother's full
medical file under the
Access To Information Act.
And this time, incredibly,
a package arrived in the mail.
>> So I waited and sure
enough about a month later,
I received a manila
envelope with about 300 pages,
legal sized, double sided,
of all the bedside notes.
>> Bob: In the basement
chest in Knowlton, Quebec where
she stores those records,
is a mine of information
that the government had
kept to itself for decades.
Notes her father could have
used years ago to prove what
happened to her mother.
Among those
newly-discovered notes,
some written by
Ewen Cameron himself,
Allison's mother, Jean,
is described as 'overactive',
'overtalkative', 'distractable',
'very suspicious',
showing 'inappropriate
behaviour' and
'crying for no reason.'
Those adjectives certainly
could describe someone
no longer mature
enough to be a mother
because of Dr Cameron's
de-patterning.
And other notes from Cameron
and colleagues clearly state
that Jean Steel had
at least 24 intensive
electroshock sessions
and might require weekly
shock treatments for the
next two to five years,
seemingly indicating
a very serious condition.
>> Now, these are the
files your Dad never saw.
>> He never saw those files.
>> Bob: Your father never
got that kind of material?
>> No, he didn't.
Well, I guess it was his word
against the government's word.
>> Bob: How do you think he
would feel about you and this?
>> Oh, he would
be proud as punch.
He would be
proud as punch of me.
I know he would.
Oh, yeah.
He would be very happy.
>> Bob: When Allison Steel took
those new medical documents to
her lawyer, Alan Stein,
he immediately launched
a court action against the
federal government.
He says the Steel family
finally had the proof they'd
always needed.
>> There is no
question about it.
The medical, or medical
history and medical report
confirms this.
>> Bob: You talk
to Allison, she says,
"That took my mother away."
She had no capacity to be
a mature parent after that.
>> That's right.
And I've seen that.
I've seen medical reports
from many, many other
former patients of Dr Cameron
who were denied compensation
and the same thing
happened to them.
>> Bob: And ultimately,
the federal government would
agree to pay compensation
in her mother's name
on the condition neither she
nor her lawyer ever talk
about it in public.
What does that tell us about
the mindset of the current
government that this should
be something they insist upon?
>> Because they don't
want more applications.
They don't want to have to
deal with more applications.
If this went to court, it would
have more publicity and more
applications would
be forthcoming.
>> Bob: Now in
accepting your settlement,
you were required to have
a nondisclosure agreement.
>> Correct.
>> Bob: You couldn't talk
about the settlement itself.
>> No.
>> Bob: Let me ask you
about what that represents.
Is that not apparently a way
for the government to limit
the number of people
who learn about this,
who might be entitled to
something like this themselves?
>> Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm.
Well, it seems to be
something because...
>> Bob: Yeah.
Why else would they do it?
>> Why they are
still covering up?
Why are they
still covering it up?
Maybe they won't
if they hear about this.
You know, maybe they will try to
realize and recognize what the
government did before and may
be there's still hope that they
could at least
recognize these victims.
>> Bob: And lawyer, Alan Stein,
says it is now time for the
Government Of Canada to
finally admit the role it played
in those brutal experiments.
>> The government
never admitted,
acknowledged that it was
responsible for the experiments
carried out by Dr Cameron
and which experiments the
Government Of Canada funded.
There was no question that
the Government Of Canada
funded these experiments.
>> Bob: Do you believe that
responsibility should be taken?
>> I definitely believe it.
>> Bob: The years of
silence haven't been
easy for the victims.
For survivor, Helene McIntosh,
and her oldest daughter,
Diane, it's taken years to
be able to discuss it all
with one another.
Diane was only three
when her mother entered
the Allan Institute.
And Helene knows too well that
Diane and the other girls have
been profoundly affected
by what happened to her.
>> I just hope that she--
I know she's forgiven me for--
I don't think she's ever
held it against me.
When she was on
the phone, all she said was,
I love you so much.
I love you so much.
And I know she does, you know?
>> I'm still dealing with this.
So I'm still struggling with it.
There...
There have been negative
ramifications in my life that
have prevented me from being
happy and from being productive
at many times.
[ ♪♪ ]
>> Bob: Helene McIntosh was one
of the lucky ones who got a hard
fought settlement from
the government in the 1990s.
But she says for her, it was
about a lot more than that.
>> I got the compensation.
But for me, it wasn't the money.
It was the...
validation that I received.
That I wasn't totally crazy.
You know?
That I was treated the way I was
and it made me do crazy things
but I didn't go in there crazy.
[ ♪♪ ]
>> Not having our mom was
not great but if you remind her
of that, there's-- it hurts her
too much, you know?
I just have to say,
"It wasn't you.
"It was them."
>> Bob: It is now the better
part of seven decades since the
Allan Memorial Institute in
Montreal became that house
of horrors.
Today, perhaps hundreds
of Canadians, survivors and
family members,
are still paying the price for
the brainwashing experiments
sponsored by the Canadian and
American governments.
Yet to this day, neither the
US nor Canada has ever said,
"We're sorry."
[ ♪♪ ]
