A former colleague of Cameron Jay Ortis, who is accused of disclosing secrets to people of interest to police, has testified in court that Mr. Ortis never mentioned taking part in undercover operations.
Dan Morris told Ontario Superior Court that Mr. Ortis did not speak to him about contacting the targets of RCMP investigations.
The Crown alleges Mr. Ortis, a former RCMP intelligence official, anonymously sent classified information in 2015 to people who were of investigative interest to the national police force.
Mr. Ortis, 51, has pleaded not guilty to violating the Security of Information Act by allegedly revealing secrets to three individuals and trying to do so in a fourth instance.
Mr. Ortis’s lawyers have indicated they will try to persuade the jury their client had the authority to take the actions he did.
Reporters and the general public were excluded from the courtroom for Mr. Morris’s appearances on Oct. 23 and on Oct. 24 despite objections from media. The latest transcripts of his testimony, including one with redactions, were released on Oct. 25.
Mr. Ortis was officer-in-charge of the RCMP’s Operations Research unit in 2010 when he hired Mr. Morris to work there. It was responsible for assembling and developing classified information on terror cells, transnational criminal networks, cybercrime actors, and commercial espionage.
Mr. Morris agreed with the Crown’s suggestion that Mr. Ortis was intelligent, detail-oriented, and organized. He recalled Mr. Ortis working on “bigger picture stuff” while analysts on the team developed intelligence research projects.
In the first few years they were colleagues, Mr. Ortis worked long hours. “He was very often the first in to the office and often the last out,” Mr. Morris said. “I’d say that began to change around 2013, where he seemed to keep more of his own schedule.”
Under cross-examination on Oct. 24, Mr. Morris agreed with the notion expressed by defense lawyer Mark Ertel that around 2010, there was a sense that the RCMP “had to get out of the habit of thinking you can only arrest your way out of problems,” and that there might be other ways of dealing with threats.
Mr. Morris was also questioned about the origins and role of Operations Research. He agreed with the general suggestion that someone might misconstrue the limits of their authority in a job. “Yes, people can make mistakes in understanding the scope of their authority,” Mr. Morris said.