Juno News - September 15, 2019Canadians deserve answers from the RCMP
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Summary
In the wake of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, the Prime Minister s office is being blocked in its efforts to investigate the involvement of senior members of government in a criminal obstruction of justice attempt. Meanwhile, a senior member of the National Security Agency has been charged with five counts under the Security of Information Act and the Official Secrets Act, including breach of trust by public officials.
Transcript
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The RCMP have featured prominently in the news this week. First, because they are being blocked
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in their efforts to investigate the involvement of the Prime Minister's office in the SNC-Lavalin
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scandal and whether there was a criminal obstruction of justice attempt by senior
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members of government, including the Prime Minister himself. Just as an aside, the RCMP released
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a statement saying there wasn't an investigation, but rather an examination. Presumably they are
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trying to stay at arm's length from the federal election campaign, but that is just terribly
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disingenuous. Former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould has told us that she was interviewed
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by the RCMP first last April, then more recently at some point in the past month. That says
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the force has been involved looking into the circumstances for at least five months. That
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said, it is important to understand the RCMP is an investigative and enforcement organization.
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They do investigations. My doctor does examinations. In the same week, news broke that a senior person
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in their organization, ostensibly the director of their IT security, Cameron Ortiz, had been
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arrested and charged with five offenses, three counts under the Security of Information Act,
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what was formerly the Official Secrets Act, and two criminal code offenses, including breach
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of trust by a public official. And more charges are pending, according to prosecutors.
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This is serious stuff. If convicted, he is looking at some very serious jail time. The last
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time I remember a case like this was that of former Royal Canadian Navy Sub-Lieutenant
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Jeffrey DeLille, who was convicted of passing information from the top-secret military intelligence
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network, dubbed Sub-Ghost, to the Russian intelligence agency, the GRU. He got sentenced to 20 years
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in jail. In this case, Ortiz was employed as the Director General of Intelligence responsible
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for cybersecurity. In that role, he could see virtually everything that exists within the National
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Police Forces computer network. It is alleged that he tried to sell top-secret information
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back in 2015 and was preparing other files to do the same at the time of his arrest. There
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is no information to indicate what that information was or who is preparing it for. Was it a criminal
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organization like the Mafia or the Hells Angels, or was it a nation-state like China? We don't
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know, and the RCMP has said nothing to tell us whether or not our national security had been
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breached or what the risk is to Canada. I have a problem with all of this. The RCMP needs
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to be more forthright with Canadians. In the first case, whatever they are doing and what
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they know should rightfully be known to Canadians before they cast a ballot on October 21st.
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We know from the Ethics Commissioner that, at the very least, the Prime Minister breached
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at least one section of the ethics legislation. And even at that, he was not able to interview
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some key people and review all requisite documents. Although it would also appear there also may
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be a prima facie case to be met for obstruction of justice, if this has been borne out by the RCMP,
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Canadians need to know. In the second case, the security of our nation may have been put at risk,
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and we have no idea what, if any, damage has been done, and the statement made by the RCMP
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doesn't do anything to reassure Canadians. While I understand the integrity of an investigation
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must be maintained, keeping Canadians in the dark or trying to minimize what they are doing
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by calling an investigation an examination is simply wrong. For True North, I'm Leo Knight.
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