Terrorism unit blueprints dumped in trash

For a Canadian government that has taken absolute pride in controlling the flow of information to the press and insisting bureaucrats clear just about everything with Cabinet before they talk to members of the media (with the exception of the weather office) this is a huge gaffe; and as Ottawa prepares for Easter, I don't think a lot of people there will be sleeping well tonight.

Blueprints detailing plans for the new counter-terrorism building at the Canadian Forces Base in Trenton, Ontario were thrown in the garbage -- and picked up by someone connected to the left-wing Rideau Institute in Ottawa's Glebe district, about a fifteen minute walk away from Parliament. Included in the blueprints recovered: The location of fences, utilities and the layout of the building.

More shocking is that only one of the eight cylinders dumped were recovered and reviewed before being turned back to National Defence. The rest may be in a landfill or a recycling facility -- or they may be in the wrong hands. Say, an Ottawa sleeper cell of Al Qaeda? God forbid if that's true.

If ever there was a time ministerial responsibility ought to be invoked, it's now. Both the minister for Defence and for Public Safety need to explain to us why such blueprints if not needed any longer were not disposed of properly.

There's a long tradition of rooting in the garbage to find out about corruption in the First and Second Estates (the church and the bureaucracy, respectively). All I can say is it's a good thing a civic minded person did the right thing and made sure it was returned back where it belonged. The point is, though, this is one thing that should not have been in the trash in the first place. It's one case in particular where most of us just don't "need to know."

UPDATE (9:40 pm EDT, 0140 GMT Friday): An earlier version of this post identified the operative who found the discarded blueprints as one with the Laurier Institute. It was in fact the Rideau Institute.

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