But others who helped Snowden still waiting for a decision from Canada on refugee status, with one ‘unraveling’ mentally and hospitalized
HONG KONG — Vanessa Rodel was so afraid to believe the news, she asked her lawyer to repeat it, five times.
“I really couldn’t believe it: ‘Is this really true?’” Rodel, 42, recalled of that late-night January phone call with Canadian lawyer Rob Tibbo. “I was so extremely happy. I said ‘My birthday is coming and Keana’s birthday is coming … This is a very good present for me.’” “His life has been unraveling the last six months, completely unraveling,” said Tibbo. “This uncertainty of what will become of his life after 15 years in Hong Kong is taking its toll.”
Tibbo, a Montrealer who had been practicing in Hong Kong for years when Snowden retained him to assist as he fled from the U.S., said he decided to expose the refugees’ role after learning the episode would be featured in a Hollywood movie. Knowing their clients could be deported at any time, the lawyers have fought to have that process expedited. But the consulate in Hong Kong has seemingly gone out its way to avoid speeding up their cases, Séguin said, which he believes is to avoid any suggestion Ottawa is eager to assist those who helped Snowden.
“Many others in precarious circumstances around the world are similarly-situated” and if deteriorating conditions warranted bringing them all to Canada to process their claims, “this would be a major alteration and expansion of Canada’s approach to refugee protection,” Justice Simon Fothergill wrote in summarizing the federal government’s position.
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