Questions about shipyard security linger following engineer’s arrest

OTTAWA – The commander of the Royal Canadian Navy says he’s been assured the secrets of the military’s planned Arctic patrol ships have not fallen into the wrong hands, and the yard at the centre of the latest spy case is taking appropriate precautions with top-secret information.

The vote of confidence from Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, in an interview with The Canadian Press, comes as questions linger about precisely what data Qing Quentin Huang, 53, might have been offering to the government of China.

Both Lloyd’s Registry Canada, Huang’s employer, and Irving Shipbuilding Inc., the prime contractor on the patrol ships, say the suspect had neither security clearance nor access to classified information.

Security services moved swiftly to arrest him over the weekend, apparently before any information was handed over.

It stands in contrast to the handling of the case of former sub-lieutenant Jeffery Delisle, the ex-navy intelligence officer, who sold a trove of secrets to the Russians.

He was under surveillance by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service for months before the RCMP was called in to build a criminal case.