Cameron Ortis, RCMP official accused of breaking secrecy law, released on bail

A senior RCMP official accused of breaking Canada’s secrecy laws has been released on bail after spending three years behind bars awaiting trial.

The reasons behind the Ontario Superior Court judge’s decision to free Cameron Ortis at Wednesday’s bail review hearing are protected by a publication ban. The decision was confirmed to Global News by the Public Prosecution Service.

Ortis, who was director-general of the RCMP’s National Intelligence Coordination Centre, was arrested and charged in 2019 with several counts under Canada’s Security of Information Act. He has been accused of being a mole in the senior ranks of the national police force and providing sensitive police information to an unnamed foreign entity.

He was briefly granted bail in October 2019 and ordered to live with his parents in Abbotsford, B.C., and forbidden from using any device that connects to the internet. A judge revoked his bail a month later, and Ortis has been in custody ever since.

Ortis’s trial is scheduled to begin in October 2023 and will last for about eight weeks.

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He faces a total of 10 charges under various provisions, including under the secrecy law and the Criminal Code, that date between 2015 and 2019.

— with files from Global’s Sam Cooper