The Harper government has expelled staff at Russia’s embassy in the wake of charges filed against a Canadian military intelligence officer for allegedly passing secrets to a foreign power, The Globe and Mail has learned.
The names of two Russian diplomats – including a defence attaché – and two technical staff at the embassy have been dropped from the Department of Foreign Affairs’ official list of diplomatic, consular and foreign government representatives recognized by Ottawa.
The Canadian government has not officially confirmed news reports that Russia was the recipient of secret information that Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle now stands accused of giving to a “foreign entity.”
He was charged under Canada’s Security of Information Act on Monday and is now in custody in Halifax awaiting a bail hearing on Jan. 25.
The matter risks casting a chill over Canada-Russia relations as the two nations jockey for position in the race for Arctic resources. The accusation that there was a spy in the ranks of the Canadian military has the potential to damage this country’s standing among defence allies.
The Russian embassy in Canada dismissed the suggestion that its diplomats or staff were expelled in reprisal for the Delisle case, saying any departures were part of a normal rotation of employees on foreign postings. They say the staffers in question returned home at the end of 2011.
“Their term of contract has expired. That’s all,” a Russian embassy official said. “It’s a planned shift of the diplomatic staff.”
The Globe and Mail has learned, however, that a number of Russian embassy staff – more than one – have left Canada in connection with the alleged spy affair.
A Russian embassy official acknowledged the following three staffers have recently left Canada, saying, however, that all departures were routine:
- Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry V. Fedorchatenko, assistant defence attaché.
- Konstantin Kolpakov, attaché.
- Mikhail Nikiforov, with the administrative and technical staff.
The embassy did not provide a clear explanation for the fourth name now gone from Canada’s official list of diplomatic, consular and foreign government representatives: Tatiana Steklova, who had been described as “administrative and technical staff.”
All four of these names were part of the official Foreign Affairs daily list as of Jan. 18 and were also part of a monthly January, 2012, list the department recently published.
The four names disappeared from the daily list as of Jan. 19.
Christian Leuprecht, an associate professor of political science at Royal Military College, said Canada has tremendous incentive to keep any expulsions low key and avoid reprisals and diplomatic spats that might escalate.
“The Canadian government does not want to get into the sort of tit-for-tat that the British and the Russian governments have been in for the last almost three years with constantly expelling each other’s diplomats in retaliation,” he said.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird declined comment when asked if Canada had any hand in the fact four Russian embassy staffers were dropped from Ottawa’s official list of diplomatic, consular and foreign government representatives.
“The matter is before the courts and on a national security file; I am just not inclined to comment at this time,” he said in an interview.
Geoffrey O’Brian, a former director-general of counterintelligence at CSIS, said operatives pay close attention to military attachés at Russian embassies, trying to discern who is a member of the GRU, Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency.
“The military attachés are classically the group from which GRU officers come, so part of the spy game – the equivalent of Where’s Waldo? – is to find out which of the military attaché staff are GRU officers and which aren’t,” Mr. O’Brian said.
SLt. Delisle – now the centre of what could be Canada’s biggest spy scandal in more than half a century – had started to bounce back in the years after declaring bankruptcy in his late 20s, moving from the reserves to the regular forces and starting his climb up the ranks of enlisted men.
But starting late in 2004 the serviceman suffered a series of new setbacks.
Two young daughters aged 10 and 11 were hit by an SUV while walking near their home in suburban Halifax, an incident that put one in the hospital and sparked a years-long battle for money. The serviceman dealt with the fallout of his girls’ injuries with his wife at his side. But court documents filed in the last 13 months indicate their union had since broken down and that they were now living in separate provinces.
It was in this period, the RCMP allege, that the serviceman started spying for a “foreign entity.”
The charges came after another attempt to rebuild his life. When arrested, he was living with a different woman, maintaining shared custody of his two daughters and had graduated from Royal Military College and moved to a job at an important intelligence unit in Halifax. But even then the echoes of his former problems continued to reverberate.
Court documents show that he was continuing to have difficulties securing money – a total of $10,500 that was to be held in trust for his daughters – from the man who hit his children.
With reports from Jennifer MacMillan and Daniel Leblanc
Commentary by the Ottawa Mens Centre
Marriage destruction is generally caused by one of both the parties having a
personality and or a mental health problem.
Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle had a very obvious personality disorder and
problems with ethics that were apparently overlooked by Canadian Forces. Its a
lesson we hope that they will pay a great deal of forensic attention to as it's
a classic example of a person who falls into the category of posing a security
risk.
Canada has "male sharia law" and the way men get treated in family court
generally is almost certain to expose any male and for that matter many females
into extreme stress and anxiety that causes sleep deprivation and which will
exaggerate any mental health or personality problem that was otherwise not
preventing normal functioning.
What makes this case different is that Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle had a
very good parenting arrangement, his ex was apparently not vindictive, she
agreed to an equal parenting regime that included equal parenting. That means it
was not his spouse who most probably had the mental health and personality
problem.
Now, the Russian GRU made a terrible mistake in dealing with Sub-Lieutenant
Jeffrey Paul Delisle, they most probably read him correctly, and accepted the
risk of him creating destruction in the Canadian Russian relationship, chose to
accept that risk because they could not resist the temptation of the
intelligence he might provide.
If we role-play this exercise a little further, Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul
Delisle was not the full deck of cards and most probably made some really dumber
than dumb mistakes in the way he became a Russian agent.
The two key people who is most likely to provide the answers to these questions
will probably be his former wife and especially his current partner.
Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle has not only been a traitor to his country
but to his two girls who will now miss out on having a father while he spends a
long time in jail.
If you are a father going through separation, taking stress leave and getting
professional help is extremely important. Its also important to very very
carefully about any decision you make while under stress such as the stupidity
of the ethically challenged Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com
Note for moderator, kindly dont have a knee jerk reaction to any "report abuse"
clicks. READ IT BEFORE YOU CAN IT,..
---
Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle had a very obvious personality disorder
and problems with ethics that were apparently overlooked by Canadian Forces. Its
a lesson we hope that they will pay a great deal of forensic attention to as
it's a classic example of a person who falls into the category of posing a
security risk.
Canada has "male sharia law" and the way men get treated in family court
generally is almost certain to expose any male and for that matter many females
into extreme stress and anxiety that causes sleep deprivation and which will
exaggerate any mental health or personality problem that was otherwise not
preventing normal functioning.
What makes this case different is that Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle had a
very good parenting arrangement, his ex was apparently not vindictive, she
agreed to an equal parenting regime that included equal parenting. That means it
was not his spouse who most probably had the mental health and personality
problem.
Now, the Russian GRU made a terrible mistake in dealing with Sub-Lieutenant
Jeffrey Paul Delisle, they most probably read him correctly, and accepted the
risk of him creating destruction in the Canadian Russian relationship, chose to
accept that risk because they could not resist the temptation of the
intelligence he might provide.
If we role-play this exercise a little further, Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul
Delisle was not the full deck of cards and most probably made some really dumber
than dumb mistakes in the way he became a Russian agent.
The two key people who is most likely to provide the answers to these questions
will probably be his former wife and especially his current partner.
Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle has not only been a traitor to his country
but to his two girls who will now miss out on having a father while he spends a
long time in jail.
If you are a father going through separation, taking stress leave and getting
professional help is extremely important. Its also important to very very
carefully about any decision you make while under stress such as the stupidity
of the ethically challenged Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com
It boggles the brain as to how and why the Globe not only allow comments on a
case with criminal charges but also as to why the Globe engage in what must be a
record number of post removals, most apparently removed because someone decided
to report the post as being "abuse". Most of the time its not the post but its
removal that constitutes an abuse.
When you look at the posts that are removed, most of them make it extremely
difficult to comprehend how and why the posts contravened the Globe's rules,
apparently now questioning the appropriateness of Globe's censorship is another
reason to remove a post.
Apparently another way of getting your post removed is to speculate as to how
and why the accused managed to end up in the forces after his well known history
and who and why he ended up with a top security clearance despite what must have
been very obvious red flags that would most likely be seen at any job interview
by virtually any well known corporate hirer who engages in triangulation.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com