On 7 March 1978, the Editor-in-Chief of the Toronto Sun, Peter Worthington, published a long list of Soviet KGB illegal activities in Canada which had been submitted to the Federal government and then ignored. This document had been prepared by the RCMP Security Service on 24 March 1976 and titled 'Canadian Related Activities of the Russian Intelligence Service.'
On 17 March 1978, Peter Worthington and Toronto Sun publisher, John Douglas Creighton, were issued summonses and charged with contravention of the Official Secrets Act. It was rather significant that neither the Toronto Star nor CTV (nor CIP) was served with the same summons although they had all carried the same material as the Toronto Sun revelations on Soviet KGB activities.
Pursuant to the revelations in Great Britain respecting Sir Anthony Blunt and other examples of KGB penetration into the UK Establishment, Peter Worthington wrote a revealing editorial in the Toronto Sun, of which the following are extracts:
Meanwhile, Canada isn't much better. Many of the Gouzenko Royal Commission papers, instead of being released after 30 years, were re-classified on the orders of Trudeau and over the signature of Michael Pitfield. Why? Canadian security leaks indicate such goodies as:
- Two senior civil servants are 'secret' members of the Communist party.
- An RCAF NCO who was the first to inform the USSR that the US was working on the A-bomb, went on to become a professor and to work for the Ontario government.
- As PM, Trudeau appointed a person to a senior position after being told he had KGB links.
- Two External Affairs types who were caught spying for the KGB were allowed to resign on full, indexed pensions.
- Two Montreal Communists named in the Gouzenko papers have since risen to top jobs in the government.
- Herbert Norman, our former ambassador to Cairo who committed suicide, had Communist links and probably killed himself to protect others.
All this and more is said to lie hidden in records. No, we in Canada have nothing to mock the British for!
Finally, on 24 April 1979, the Toronto Sun announced that all charges against it under the Official Secrets Act had been dropped. Judge Carl Waisberg ruled that there was no evidence to commit the paper, its Publisher and its Editor-in-Chief to trial. The Trudeaucrats had failed ignominiously to intimidate and jail a couple of newsmen of conviction and courage.
In the meantime PM Trudeau not only continued to cover up Soviet KGB activities in Canada but engaged in overt pro-Soviet antics such as awarding the 'Order of Canada' to the Doukhobor arsonist leader in Canada, John J. Verigin, who travels back and forth to the USSR to meet Red leaders; and appointing a notorious terrorist, Jacques Roy, to a top-level post.
