By Canadian Press

Security-clearance backlogs bedevilled RCMP as employee allegedly leaked secrets

Sep 27, 2019 | 2:09 AM

OTTAWA — An internal RCMP audit shows the Mounties were struggling to keep staff security clearances up to date during the time a senior employee allegedly tried to pass secrets to adversaries.

The audit report stressed the importance of regularly reviewing the security status of RCMP employees to guard against the threat of an insider betraying the national police force by sharing sensitive information with the wrong people.

The auditors found all of the RCMP sections across Canada responsible for screening had “a significant backlog” of security updates to do, as well as smaller backlogs of new clearances and upgrades to higher security levels.

Overall, the audit concluded that “risks and gaps” were hampering effective delivery of the security-screening program to the force’s nearly 30,000 employees, 25,000 contractors and more than 17,000 volunteers in over 700 communities.

The little-noticed Audit of Personnel Security, completed in 2016 and quietly made public in edited form last year, takes on new relevance following the arrest this month of RCMP intelligence official Cameron Jay Ortis.

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Ortis, 47, is accused of violating three sections of the Security of Information Act as well as two Criminal Code provisions, including breach of trust, for allegedly trying to disclose classified information to an unspecified foreign entity or terrorist group.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 27, 2019.

The Canadian Press