Canada closes Syrian consulate in Montreal

TORONTO, Canada – The government of Canada has temporarily closed the Syrian consulate in Montreal, one of only two remaining Syrian representative offices in Canada, amid allegations of wrongdoing that may be linked to unauthorised pharmaceutical exports.

Radio-Canada first reported last week that Honorary Syrian Consul Nelly Kanou was removed from her position in Montreal and her office was referring Syrians to another office across the country in Vancouver.

“Honorary consuls in Canada are expected to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of their function,” Chantal Gagnon, spokesperson for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, told Middle East Eye in an emailed statement.

“The government of Canada is prepared to work with the government of Syria in order to appoint a new honorary consul in Montreal.”

Canada’s previous Conservative government suspended its diplomatic mission in Syria in 2012. It closed the Canadian embassy and consulate and pulled all diplomatic staff out of the country amid a “deteriorating security situation”.

Later that same year, Ottawa expelled Syrian diplomats from Canada after government forces killed more than 100 civilians, including children, in the town of Taldou, in Houla province northwest of Homs.

But Ottawa allowed two honorary Syrian consulates to remain open, in Montreal and Vancouver.

Consulates are generally smaller than embassies and handle bureaucratic tasks including renewing passports and processing visa applications. They also seek to bolster trade and commercial ties between host and home countries.

Syrian community in limbo

The consulate’s closure came as a surprise to many Syrians in Montreal, leaving them without a place to process documents.

“I don’t know what Syrians in Montreal will do now,” said Imad al-Zawahra, head of the Syrian-Canadian Democratic Forum, who said many Syrians in the Montreal community are waiting for a new honorary consul to be appointed.

“I don’t know if in the meantime they will send their documents to another city. I don’t have any information,” Zawahra told MEE. “Most are waiting for them to re-open the consulate and appoint a new consul.”

The consulate in Montreal was the only Syrian representative office serving eastern Canada. Most Syrians in the country are based in Ontario and Quebec, two eastern provinces that also took in a majority of the recent Syrian refugees resettled in Canada.

The office also served people on the East Coast of the United States, which suspended all Syrian diplomatic and consular operations in 2014.

Faisal al-Azem, head of the Montreal-based Syrian Canadian Council, told MEE that many Syrians who do not hold Canadian citizenship now have little recourse to renew expired passports.

“It's a sensitive situation because even in the US, I know that people don't have a lot of options. This has been an issue for many years,” Azem said, adding that he expected Syrians without proper documentation to ask for asylum in Canada if they cannot have their passports or travel documents renewed.

Azem said the Montreal office of the consulate had been highly politicised and the quality of service differed based on whether people supported the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The office charged $200 to renew a passport and required the applicants submit the money in cash in US dollars, Azem said. That was something with which he was uncomfortable. “It was highly politicised and it wasn't very clear how the money was being used … The fees were very high,” Azem said.

Allegations of wrongdoing

The former honorary consul in Montreal, Kanou, is a pharmacist by trade and owns several pharmacies in the city.

Last year, Kanou pleaded guilty in front of a Quebec Order of Pharmacists discipline committee to selling $1.5mn worth of pharmaceuticals between 2008 and 2011 to a company that exported them to the Middle East without proper authorisation.

Kanou’s lawyer argued that she was motivated by a “humanitarian interest” to help hospitals in the region, even if she made a profit on the sales, according to a report in Montreal newspaper La Presse.

The Syrian honorary consul in Vancouver, Sawsan al-Habbal, did not respond to MEE’s email requests for comment about the consulate’s closure. The Vancouver consulate is now the only office offering Syrian state administrative services in North America.

A lawyer, Habbal earned her law degree from McGill University in Montreal. “Ms Habbal has extensive business and commercial contacts in Syria. She is actively involved in promoting commercial and cultural relationship between Syria and the province of British Columbia,” a brief biography on the consulate website reads.

Kanou also could not be reached for comment. The former website for the consulate in Montreal is no longer online, while an answering machine message re-directs callers to the Vancouver office.

“For us, a Syrian is a Syrian… All I wanted was to help the Syrian people,” she told Radio-Canada last week. “Mr. Assad appointed me because of my loyalty to the Syrian community here in Montreal."

But Azem, a staunch critic of Assad, said he had made a decision not to set foot inside the consulate because of its pro-government position.

“I definitely don't have any affinities towards her personally or the consulate,” he told MEE, “because as soon as you open the door you're struck by pictures of al-Assad all over the walls, and it's very uncomfortable knowing all the violence happening in Syria that is government-sponsored.”

“She put herself at odds with a large part of the community, including myself,” he said.

Ottawa, meanwhile, said it was monitoring the impact of the closure and continues to support the nearly 27,000 Syrian refugees who have been resettled in Canada since last fall.