299 Queen Street West and the golden era of MuchMusic | SaltWireOTTAWA – Former RCMP director general of intelligence Cameron Ortis was acting on secret information from an unnamed foreign agency to protect Canada from “serious and imminent threats” when he allegedly leaked classified documents to suspected criminals, his lawyer said Thursday.
During his upcoming testimony, Ertel said Ortis is “going to tell all of you and Canada why he did what he did. He protected Canada from serious and imminent threats. And he’s going to tell you why he had a duty to act, why his actions were appropriate, why they were necessary… and he’ll tell you that he had the authority to do everything that he did.”He also revealed for the first time that Ortis was allegedly acting on secret information from a foreign agency that can not be named.
“His actions were in large part a result of secret information communicated to him by a foreign agency. And he’s going to be forbidden from telling you what the information was or what the foreign agency was. So, he’s defending himself with one hand tied behind his back,” Ertel said. Ortis, the RCMP’s former director general of intelligence, is facing six charges, including four under the Security of Information Act for allegedly “intentionally and without authority” sharing or trying to share “special operational information” with four individuals in 2015.