Ex-CSIS manager says ‘lives could be at risk’ as RCMP intelligence official charged with espionage

A former senior manager with Canada’s spy agency says last week’s arrest of an RCMP director on charges of espionage and fraud has far-reaching consequences.

Michel Juneau-Katsuya, who spent 21 years with Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), says lives could be at risk.

“Basically, he could look at almost everything that he wanted, but there will be a trace of what he’s tried to look at, to download or copy and that will be very, very important here in order to inform our allies,” he says.

Juneau-Katsuya says evidence found in the home of Cameron Ortis includes a list of undercover agents operating in southeast Asia.

“Definitely, that demonstrates the serious damages he could have done. What this guy was about to do was serious damage and definitely putting at risk the life of undercover agents,” he says. “Not only did he have access to Canadian intelligence production, but he had access also to intelligence coming from our allies –particularly from our Five Eyes –New Zealand, Australia, UK, US and Canada.”

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki is holding a news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday.

She’s already released a statement confirming the entire force is shaken by accusations involving the Director General of the RCMP’s National Intelligence Coordination Centre.

As for who Ortis could have been sharing information with, he says the man with high-level security clearance was working on a money laundering file linked to a Russian crime group.

“There could be a Russian connection there, but at the same time, he was a specialist on Asia Pacific, maybe it has an Asia Pacific element to it.”