As the bombardment of Homs continued in early December and casualties rose nationwide as a result of the Assad regime’s ongoing crimes against the Syrian people, Canada’s largest petroleum producer, Alberta-based Suncor Energy, quietly issued a press release stating that the corporation was finally leaving Syria “as a result of sanctions on Syria announced by the European Union.”

The Dec. 11 release, an otherwise dry financial statement that positioned the move as a business measure, failed to state that the oil giant -- known in Syria by the name Petro-Canada --could no longer operate in a nation that for the past year had escalated the scale and brutality of the violence it had inflicted on its citizens for decades. Rather, it repeated the same pithy concern for the safety and security of the Syrian people that had been its line throughout a year when the corporation was forced to respond directly to the human rights questions raised by grass roots activists here in Canada.