FILE - This file image made from undated militant video, shows Canadians Robert Hall, left, and John Ridsdel, right. With a black Islamic State group-style flag as a backdrop, Abu Sayyaf fighters beheaded Canadian hostage Hall on southern Jolo island on Monday, June 13, 2016, after a ransom deadline passed. Enraged by the beheading of a second Canadian hostage by ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf extremists, Philippine troops pressed a major offensive in the south Tuesday, June 14, 2016, but there was no sign of an end to the small but brutal insurgency that a new president will inherit in about two weeks. (Militant Video via AP Video, File) NO SALES, MANDATORY CREDIT (The Associated Press)
OTTAWA, Ontario – Relatives of a Canadian man beheaded by Islamic militants in the Philippines say they agree with Canada's policy of not paying ransom for hostages.
Robert Hall had been held hostage by the militant Abu Sayyaf group since September 2015 and was beheaded this week after a deadline for a ransom payment passed.
Hall's family said Tuesday in a statement that every option to free him was considered and efforts to that end were "vast and exhaustive."
In the end, the family says it agrees with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's directive that money not be paid to hostage takers who seek to undermine fundamental Canadian values.
The family says it will remember Hall, who was born in 1949, as a self-made man who worked his entire life to raise his family above the hardships of his own youth.
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