OTTAWA'S SPY SCANDAL SHROUDED IN SECRECY

   This country’s membership in the Five Eyes military-intelligence alliance — which consists of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand — has been damaged by a lingering espionage and law-enforcement scandal in Ottawa that’s been shrouded in secrecy.
   In September 2019, the RCMP’s highest-level intelligence official, Cameron Ortis, was arrested and remains in jail. No trial date has been set and court documents have been sealed.
   Then, in August of this year, three RCMP analysts who worked under Ortis filed a civil suit, accusing him of workplace harassment and RCMP management of failing to address his bad behaviour. They alleged privacy breaches, as well, because “the intelligence that Mr. Ortis had stolen and sold was largely the work product of the NICC employees he had targeted,” and that “the work product transmitted by Mr. Ortis to third parties contains information which identifies the plaintiffs personally.” None of these allegations have been proven in court.
   Ortis remains accused of eight counts of violating the Security of Information Act and two criminal counts, though none of the charges have been proven in court. All documents and proceedings have been sealed by the courts and no one is commenting on the matter.