Ortis was 'on the cusp' of passing state secrets to foreign entity at time of arrest, Crown alleged

Cameron Ortis, convicted by a jury Wednesday of violating Canada's secrets act, was arrested when he was "on the cusp" of passing state secrets to a foreign entity, a Crown prosecutor alleged during the former RCMP official's bail hearing in 2019.

When RCMP officers raided Cameron Ortis's condo in late August 2019, they were hunting for clues related to leaks of internal police documents to criminal groups.

Their investigation took a quick turn into the murky world of international espionage when they analyzed electronic equipment and documents seized at the residence of the national police force's top intelligence analyst.

According to an unsealed 2020 court document, which can now be reported on, RCMP investigators feared Ortis was planning to share information with Chinese officials.

On several to-do lists police found in his condo, Ortis noted mundane activities like donating blood, cleaning his apartment, working out and filing dental insurance claims — in addition to tasks related to what he called "the project." Prosecutors said this was the name given to his plan to leak state secrets.

On his computer equipment, RCMP agents discovered 488 highly classified documents.

According to information disclosed in court in the fall of 2019 — which can now be reported publicly for the first time — almost all of these documents were printed by Ortis at his RCMP offices between September 2018 and August 2019.

Ortis, a civilian with a doctorate in international relations, was serving at the time as the director of the RCMP's national intelligence co-ordination centre in Ottawa. He had access to Canada's Top Secret Network (CTSN), a computer network used by the federal government to share classified information. CTSN held intelligence from Canada's allies in the Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing network that includes the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

During his bail hearings in October 2019, federal prosecutor Judy Kliewer alleged Ortis was in the final stages of a plan to pass state secrets to a "foreign entity."

Ortis was arrested by his RCMP colleagues on September 12, 2019 before he acted on that plan, said the Crown. During the bail hearing, Kliewer argued that if Ortis had carried out his plan, the consequences would have been catastrophic for the security of Canada, its allies and intelligence agents in the field.

"It was like he was holding a loaded gun and about to pull the trigger," she said.

On Wednesday, a jury found Ortis guilty of all charges against him.

Testifying in his own defence, Ortis claimed he was actually working on a secret mission from a foreign agency. Ortis said the plan was to lure criminals to an encrypted email service to allow authorities to collect intelligence about them.

Ortis said he sent the information to police targets in order to prove his "bona fides."