I, like a lot of Canadians, was shocked by the espionage charges laid against Royal Canadian Navy Officer Jeffrey Deslisle. If you’re not up on the story, Jeff was posted to the pseudo-”top secret” HMCS Trinity — an intelligence facility, not an actual ship. The Sub Lt. (who I’m guessing won’t get an Honourable discharge) peddled his illicit wares to the Russians. Last week, court proceedings revealed that he was selling these secrets for only about $3,000 a month. Worse: he didn’t only spill our intelligence (Canada doesn’t have that much to go around, you know), he gave away our allies’ secrets using his access to STONEGHOST.
CSIS, DND, et al take note: there’s a lesson to be learned from this disaster.
You could take away the fact that we shouldn’t trust the Russians, and you’d be right. In spite of pressure from my oft-delusional peers, who hold an Alice in Wonderland view of the world, I’ve maintained this belief. Let’s extend my theory: don’t trust Commies, whether current or Perestroika‘d (if, in the latter case, they haven’t actually reformed; e.g. modern day Russia)
The average American understands my logic.
- America is right about Cuba. Canadians should be admonished for supporting the brutal, cruel regime in Havana with their petty trips to its sandy beaches. Sometimes Canadians realize too late what communist justice means.
- America was right about Libya and Syria, just like they’ll someday be proven right about Iran and North Korea.
- America is smartening up about China – an oppressive country that denies fundamental rights to its citizens – except it continues to tolerate China’s currency manipulation and constant trade infractions. The world gave Beijing the Olympics in return for an unfulfilled promise that the regime would clean up its human rights act. China continuously violates trade laws and cyber-attacks its foreign competitors. If you don’t believe me, Google ‘the Sidewinder Report” or read what CSIS Director Richard Fadden had to say about foreign infiltration of our federal, provincial, and municipal governments. China demands real concessions from us — e.g. “give us your oil infrastructure” — in exchange for some US debt dollars and ethereal promises. Like true communists, they leave these promises unfulfilled.
Personal finance won’t resolve the “opportunity” issue. Jeff’s opportunity was a USB stick hidden in his pocket. This says something about the DND’s physical and IT security, but let’s not open that can of moles. I mean, worms.
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On the matters of need and justification, however, I think there are opportunities for improvement.
- I can’t understate how shocking it is that a guy who has displayed a complete ignorance of money to the point of declaring bankruptcy was given top secret security clearance without a second thought as to his future management of money. DND, stahp. That’s stupid.
- Credit monitoring would be an excessive infringement of privacy — in most jobs. I think there should be an exception for people who willingly handle top-secret information.
- I don’t think it’d be frowned upon by taxpayers if CSIS and DND provided employees with personal finance instruction. I’m sure that the DND has got some kind of lame Employee Assistance Program — a 1-800 number to dial if you’re stressed out. That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean in-the-flesh counselors. And their intervention should be automatic (hence why the ‘credit monitoring’ aspect is essential). Either shape up your finances or go back to being a “Logistics Officer” on a real boat.
- Jeff’s relationship and emotional issues were more complex than his money problems. But they could have been identified. People around him noticed his odd behaviour — his growing emotional detachment, predisposition to fantasies, and preference for internet personas over real life, etc. Perhaps a mandatory semi-annual interview with a psychologist would have resulted in earlier red flags (before he got caught at the border with $10,000 in cash and $40,000 in prepaid Visa cards after a single weekend trip to Brazil — good catch CBSA!). Concerns should have resulted in compulsory, taxpayer-funded referrals to specialist therapists.
- If significant issues emerge in an intelligence officer’s life and he or she refuses to rectify them, then they should face a single choice: move onto base (and submit to the indignities of constant monitoring and an extremely regimented weekday life) or lose top secret clearance. Again, this isn’t human resource management at McDonald’s.
I think the problem here is the limited resources available to DND at the moment, considering the layoffs, construction funding, etc. There just isn’t enough money to pay for these sorts of employee programs, or if there is, it is being directed in other areas (ahem, fighter jets).
Ugh, fighter jets. Don’t get me wrong — initially I wasn’t against the fighters because they were pitched as technologically superior, essential to supporting allied militaries, etc. To me it was a simple case of hippies whining that we shouldn’t dare be on a level playing field with opposing powers. But now, as more information has become public, particularly from the congressional hearings on the JSF program, I have to say I’m against it. The F-35 isn’t truly stealth and it’s not as fast or nimble as originally thought (besides huge cost overruns, an airframe that will apparently fall apart in 15 years etc)
I think Canada should dump the 0.2 billion it put into the program as a sunk cost (I’m mad about scandals, I’m not mad about our government investing some money into staying on the bleeding edge and getting it wrong once-in-a-while; not like we were buying sunken submarines lol) and beg the Americans for some CF-22s, cause those would be more than good enough to take on any MiG.
Thanks for commenting, rq. Haven’t seen you before and I really hope you stop by again, great input!
The federal government is a fun beast full of various actors. The vast majority of all civil servants are loyal. I think that this individual was a real loser. Halifax is one of the world’s best cities and the fact that he could trade our freedom for some tiny cash is crazy.
But yea, one of the signs of dealing with a loser that are checked… Credit Records but remember the average one is well average… or worse. The federal agencies in question recruit from the poor among our citizenry or sailors who decide to go to university in their 30s!
I don’t know about you losers but I’ll be done graduate school paid for by tax dollars in my 20s..
I’m not against hiring somebody with average credit, perhaps even poor credit.
The issue is that the guy had declared BANKRUPTCY and they didn’t even give it a second thought lol. Like check in, and if the guy is in $40,000 in credit card debt, ask some questions, give him a hand. Then if that credit card debt starts disappearing and he’s made no changes, ask SOME MORE questions lmao. Like “Jeff, you by chance making some extra money with a new gig? Perhaps selling kidney stones on eBay? Or secrets to the Russians?”
It just stinks like such a typical gov’t operation: “not my job to make sure,” and clearly some of those retired-on-active-duty COs should get a KITA for their stupidity, but they won’t. If you want a terrible job done, ask the government. If you want it to disastrously explode, ask the Military.
I so agree with everything you wrote here. Even the stuff I shouldn’t agree with for fearing of seeming like a d*ck. One of my biggest problems with the Canadian public sector (municipal, federal, provincial) is that they don’t pay the smart, important people nearly enough (like Joe!); and they pay the incompetent unskilled way too much (looking at post office workers, garbage men, etc.)
But yes, if you have a person who is allowed to see military secrets of your allies, you should REALLY keep close tabs on their financial situation. Such massive incompetence on all levels here.
lol thanks Adam, flattery will get you everywhere.
And I’m pretty sure this post will get TF monitored by the Chinese Thought Police. No, that’s not a veiled swipe at the CRTC — thankfully they can only issue citations for thought crime if I speak my mind on the radio (I never lost somebody’s broadcast license but I got a couple of complaints lol).
I’m surprised the DND or CSIS don’t keep better tabs on their own people, but then again, we’re not talking about, like, the Mossad here. [As an aside, reading a great book on the history of the latter - holy cow!]
But, hey, at least the guy did it for money (albeit a chintzy amount) and not for love of Mother Russia, or worse yet communism. North America-born peeps who call themselves communists make me LOL for days (mostly to keep from getting rage-y). Does anyone ever ask themselves why, based on past and current experience, communism always seems to fail in practice? And not just in a “capitalism sucks but I’ll still happily live in America” kind of way, but in the kind of way that makes absolutely no one ever want to move to an actual communist country? Sorry, rant over
I hope some day you’re willing to write more about why communism is awful. Then again, it’d probably be PACKED with obnoxious “Editor Joe’s Notes”.