Court hears of spy’s damage
Canada has not lost credibility with allies over intelligence leak, Delisle lawyer argues
HALIFAX • The sentencing hearing for a navy officer who was paid nearly $72,000 for selling secrets to the Russians began Thursday with conflicting accounts of the extent of the damage Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle caused.
Crown attorney Lyne Decarie told provincial court that Delisle, 41, received 23 payments totalling $71,817 from 2007 until 2011 after he walked into Ottawa’s Russian Embassy.
She said Russian agents told him to provide a “manuscript” on the 10th of each month with information pertaining to Russia.
Decarie said Delisle came under suspicion after returning to the country in September 2011 from Brazil, where he met a Russian agent named Victor who told him that his role would change to become a “pigeon,” or liaison for all Russian agents in Canada.
Alarms were raised within the Canada Border Services Agency because he had no tan, three prepaid credit cards, thousands of dollars in U.S. currency and a handwritten note with an email address, she said.
She outlined how Delisle took classified information home and copied it into an email address that he shared with his Russian agent so he never had to send the email, Decarie said.
Judge Patrick Curran asked Delisle if he had read the agreed statement of facts, agreed with it and provided the information voluntarily.
To all of the questions, he quietly replied, “Yes, your honour.”
Michelle Tessier, director general of internal security at CSIS, testified that “a lot of resources” have been diverted to reassuring Canada’s allies that their information is safe.
“There’s a risk we might be cut off of certain intelligence,” Tessier said when asked by the Crown what might happen if the agency doesn’t meet deadlines to repair the damage.
Two CSIS documents that Delisle tried to transmit to the Russians on Jan. 11, 2012, just before he was arrested, contained information that could potentially identify sources that work for CSIS, she said.
She said CSIS is continuing to assess the fallout from Delisle’s actions.
“We take employee identity very seriously,” she said. “It could be threatening to their own safety.”
The damage that could have been done had those reports been transferred to the Russians would have been high because they contained “tactical pieces of intelligence,” she said.
“If the service (CSIS) is not able to show it can protect human sources, that will have a chilling effect on the recruitment of human sources,” she said.
Brig- Gen. Rob Williams, director general of military signals intelligence, admitted under questioning from defence lawyer Mike Taylor that there were security lapses at HMCS Trinity, the military all-source intelligence centre where Delisle worked.
‘It is, in a way, theoretical harm. To be honest, it is very difficult to assess the harm he has done.’
WESLEY WARK Expert on intelligence, University of Toronto
“There were problems, yes,” Williams testified. “Things were missed.”
Taylor challenged Williams on the assertion by Defence officials and CSIS that the damage Delisle did to relations with Canada’s allies was irreparable and severe, as stated in a CSIS assessment.
Taylor asked whether Williams had been told by any of the Five Eyes community that Canada was not receiving intelligence.
“We have not been told we have been cut off,” Williams said. “(But) I would not say (it’s) business as usual.”
Wesley Wark, an expert in security and intelligence with the University of Toronto, testified that it would be difficult for the Canadian intelligence community to prove Delisle caused much real damage because police intercepted only two attempted transmissions during the five years he was selling secrets to the Russians.
Wark said there was no evidence of a Russian reaction or response to the material they received over the years. “It is, in a way, theoretical harm,” he testified. “To be honest, it is very difficult to assess the harm he has done.”
Work also dismissed the Crown’s assertion that Canada is at risk of being cut off from intelligence-sharing with its Five Eyes partners, saying that more serious breaches in other countries have not resulted in them being frozen out.
“It is a real reach to say that Canada will suddenly be cast out,” he said. “I can’t imagine we’ll be cast out.”
Delisle pleaded guilty in October to one charge of breach of trust and two charges of passing information to a foreign entity that could harm Canada’s interests. He is the first person to be sentenced under Canada’s Security of Information Act, which was passed after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The breach of trust charge carries a maximum sentence of five years, while the other charges carry life sentences.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled to last two days.