A former Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) intelligence official accused of leaking secrets has told a jury he did not commit a crime or betray the national police force.
Cameron Jay Ortis testified in Ontario Superior Court that he had the authority to do what he did in the name of combating threats to Canada’s security.
Journalists and the general public were barred from the courtroom for Mr. Ortis’ testimony on November 2, but a redacted transcript has now been released.
The Crown alleges Ortis anonymously sent classified documents in 2015 to people who were of interest to the RCMP investigation.
The 51-year-old has pleaded not guilty to violating the Protection of Information Act by revealing secrets to three people and attempting to do so in a fourth instance.
The Crown argues that Mr. Ortis did not have the authority to disclose classified documents and that he was not doing so as part of some sort of undercover operation.
Mark Ertel, a lawyer for Mr. Ortis, told the jury that the former intelligence official acted largely on secret information passed to him by a foreign agency and that he aimed to protect Canada against imminent threats.
Questioned by Mr. Ertel, his client said that his mission had always been “to respond head-on to threats to Canada’s security.”
Mr. Ertel asked Mr. Ortis if he regretted his actions.
“Well, I don’t make decisions based on my career or my career prospects, but I couldn’t have imagined that any of this would happen,” he maintained.
“So, of course, in some sense I regret everything that happened to everyone over the last four years, but what I did wasn’t bad. »