The Decibel - Canadian military officer charged with leaking government secrets

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

Canadian counter-intelligence military officer Matthew Robar, is facing charges of espionage. The veteran military officer is accused of sharing information with Ukraine in its war against Russia, according to a source for The Globe and Mail. Robar was arrested last week, and charged with multiple offences related to passing highly sensitive government secrets to a foreign entity.Steven Chase, a senior parliamentary reporter for The Globe, speaks to The Decibel about what’s known about Robar, what the espionage charges mean, and how this development might affect Canada’s relationship with Ukraine.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A member of the Canadian Armed Forces is being charged with espionage. Master Warrant Officer Matthew Sean Robar is accused of leaking highly sensitive government secrets to a foreign entity. The government has not identified the foreign entity. But a source told the Globe and Mail that Robar is accused of providing information to Ukraine. Today, the Globe's senior parliamentary reporter, Stephen Chase, joins us from Ottawa. He'll tell us what we know about Master Warrant Officer Matthew Sean Robar, the classified information that was allegedly shared, and how it could affect Canada's relationship with Ukraine.

I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Hi, Steve, thanks so much for coming back on the show. Glad to be here. So before we get into what Master Warrant? officer Matthew Robar allegedly shared with a foreign entity. Can you tell me what we know about him? Yeah, he's in his 40s. I think he's about 43. He is an intelligence operator. That's a position in the Canadian Armed Forces. He works within the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command. That's basically the unit in the military that collects information and collects intelligence. He's been in the military for

about two decades. And he's been an intelligence officer since 2007. And in 2019, he started working in counterintelligence. He's got a top secret clearance. And he's married to a global affairs diplomat. And so can you kind of describe what does a counterintelligence person do exactly? Like, what does that look like in practice? So counterintelligence in the forces focuses on identifying and neutralizing threats like espionage, sabotage, subversion, terrorism, and foreign interference that's targeting the Department of National Defense. Okay. And he's a master warrant officer.

Can you just explain what that means? Sure. As master warrant officer, that's the highest non-commission rank in the forces. And he had a valid top security clearance, which enabled him have access to classified documents. and parts of the forces commensurate with that rank. Okay, wow. So what has Robar been charged with? He's been charged with a number of offenses,

but the most serious ones are under what's called the Foreign Interference and Security of Information Act, specifically communicating special operational information to a foreign entity and breach of trust in respect of safeguarded information. That first charge, that carried, up to life imprisonment. These are very rare charges to be laid in the forces.

A similar charge was laid against Jeffrey Delisle, the former naval intelligence officer who was charged with passing secrets to the Russians, and he was eventually sentenced to 20 years in jail. The other charges involved here are a sort of a combination of things. One of them is interesting. It's feigning disease,

and what we think this is is malingering, pretending to be sick, pretending to be ill. that's under the National Defense Act. And there's a few improper storage of firearm charges that we believe relate to a raid on his house in October this year. Okay. Some of the charges you talked about there don't happen very often. So this sounds like a very big deal. It is.

I mean, the top two charges are effectively espionage. Wow. A serving member of the Canadian Armed Forces is being charged with espionage with passing secrets to a foreign entity representing a foreign government. Wow. Okay. We should point out that none of these accusations have been proven in court. But what have we learned about how and when this espionage allegedly unfolded? Sure.

And what we have are documents that were filed with the military court when master warrant officer Robar appeared earlier this week. So what the documents told us is that between late 2023 and early 2024, Robar, who at this point is working, in counterintelligence, he was asked or tasked to interview individuals who were bringing concerns to the Canadian forces and about the Canadian forces. So somebody was telling the Canadian forces about concerns they had that they think were a threat to the forces or that related to the forces in some way. It sounds vague, but that's because the prosecutors aren't telling us much here. Okay. And then he interviewed these individuals who had brought concerns about about the forces to the forces.

And these individuals, all we know is that they suggested he speak to the foreign entity. And of course, the Globe Mill is reported that the foreign entity is from Ukraine. So in this case, if we put that information together, he's been introduced to people in the Ukrainian government, people in the Ukrainian intelligence service at that time. And what unfolds from there? We're only given snippets, but there's supposedly a project that Robar, and the foreign entity, which we have reported as Ukraine, begin working on together. We're not given a lot of insight into that. We're told it's an unconventional activity using sensitive techniques,

but that somehow are in the he thinks are in the force's interests, but also in the interests of the foreign entity, which is Ukraine. So he begins seeking approval to do this, and he doesn't get it. He tries this repeatedly. He even tries to get funding for this project. the question naturally arises what is the project we don't know we're given no insight into this from the documents so he wants to go abroad and meet with them canadian forces says no now that no is delivered in june 24 but in september 2024 according to the documents he goes abroad meet with the

foreign entity which we have reported as ukraine and he brings along another canadian forces member, we're not really sure why, but it may be to sort of help legitimize what he's doing. That is not clear. At that meeting, he discusses Canadian Forces Intelligence Capabilities, according to investigators, things that he had no authority to offer or disclose. And then he met with his other Canadian Forces member to seek funding for this project, and the Canadian Forces member actually passed on to him a number of pieces of information. Now, that takes us to about September of 2024, and that's where concern starts to bubble away in the forces.

Okay. So in October 2024, Robar's chain of command confronts him. He admits to meeting the foreign entity, but then allegedly he lies about key aspects of the meeting and plays it down and tries to cover it by saying, well, he'd taken his global affairs diplomat spouse to sort of vet the contact, which military prosecutors. do not believe. At that point, he's asked to write down detailed reports on every interaction with this foreign entity. Now, prosecutors say he lied in these reports. At that point, he's basically placed on desk duty, removed from his duties in counterintelligence, and a concern begins about what kind of classified information, sensitive operational information he passed on to the foreign entity, which the globe has reported, is Ukraine. Okay, so let's get into it.

classified information is Robar being accused of sharing with this foreign entity? There's three things that stand out in the allegations laid out by prosecutors. First of all, what appears to be a Canadian government intelligence assessment of the foreign entity itself. Secondly, planned movements of a foreign military partner. We don't know who. Is it the U.S.? Is it another ally? But planned movements of a foreign military partner. Can you explain what that means? That means just basically passing information about what this partner might be doing and explain a little bit more.

Well, we don't have a lot of information about that, but we can speculate that plan movements mean deployments, activities, postings, actions that another military ally, such as the United States or any of Canada's allies, actions they may be taking or are taking. And of course, right now, the bigger context is. Ukraine is engaged in a battle for survival. Russia has been pounding the country with missiles, with drones. And there's a coalition of partners, mainly European Union allies in NATO, as well as the United States and as well as Canada, who've been helping Ukraine during that period. So it's possible it has something to do with that, but we're not given any context in here.

The third piece of information that Robar is accused of passing on to the foreign entity is the full name and identity of this other Canadian forces member, which he has brought into this. Now, what's important about that is that this Canadian forces member who is not identified has a dual role or a double role in that they also are involved in covert intelligence gathering for the Canadian government. So he has basically blown the cover of another Canadian forces member whose job on the surface may not be what it seems, but in fact, who has another job collecting information and covertly collecting intelligence for the Canadian government. So what do we know about why Robar allegedly shared classified information? That is a very good question. And we sort of have a bit of a puzzle here where we have bits of the puzzle and we're missing parts of the puzzle. For instance, even the military prosecutor, who was at the hearing this week where Robar was released with conditions, said that he's not a flight risk and was not motivated by personal or financial gain or to cause harm. So those things are being taken off the table by the prosecutor themselves.

What does that leave? We're not sure. At one point, in the documents filed in court, investigation. cite what they call an obsession by Robar with this foreign entity's unapproved project. And he believed, according to these documents, that the forces was not doing enough in the space. At some, another point in the document, it says that signal chats between Robar and the foreign entity show that he was offered employment with the Foreign Intelligence Service connected to this foreign entity as a reward for facilitating the entity's interests.

We don't know Mr. Robar's side of this. It hasn't been explained to us. We have no statement of defense. But they've taken personal financial gain off the table at the court. He seems to be very concerned about the welfare of this foreign entity and wants to do things to help them. And there is the allegation that he discussed a job with them. We'll be right back. Steve, do we know if this alleged leak had any impact on Canada security?

We don't have enough information yet, given this case is only a week old in the public sphere. But we do have some rather disturbing allegations about the behavior of the foreign entity that Globe and Mail has identified as Ukraine. In the exhibits that were filed in court, military processes, prosecutors alleged that the foreign entity had threatened reprisals if activity and work on this project wasn't resumed. And in fact, threatened to go to the media with the sensitive information that Robar had given them. We're talking about, you know, the covert agents identity, the intelligence assessment, the movements of foreign partners. They threatened to go to the media with this information in attempt to force Canada into supporting their foreign

intelligence services interests. Now, apparently, Canada did not give into this, according to the military prosecutors. But it gave the foreign entity, which we've reported as Ukraine, leverage over Canada and therefore was putting us in a position where we could be vulnerable to the foreign entity. These are among the most disturbing aspects of this case, that it sounds like Ukraine was exploiting this information and threatening to hold it over us. Again, nothing has been proven in a court of law. As I said, we don't have a lot of information about this, but in one of the documents filed in court, the allegation from prosecutors, Robar's unauthorized activity subjected

the forces and allied partners to, quote, significant risk. How has Ukraine responded to this? Their embassy here has emailed after almost a week of emails to the ambassador and to the embassy. They finally responded by apologizing for not talking to the media and saying they're very busy. And if we submit questions to them, at some point they will try to answer us. What about the response from Ottawa? The Canadian government has nothing to say. We've talked to the foreign affairs minister, Anita Anon. She simply said she wasn't briefed on the facts of the case and therefore couldn't comment.

She was just happy to see the fact that an alleged breach of special information was being investigated. So nobody wants to touch with a 10-foot poll. And I should point out that this case wasn't brought to the public's attention until the very evening after Parliament rose for the winter break. And I don't think that's a coincidence. So that means that there's no ministers around. There's no MPs around. There's no question period to discuss this, which then means. there's no ability to corner members of parliament and ministers to talk about this.

Is there any sense that these allegations against Robar could impact Canada's ongoing financial and military support of Ukraine? Because, you know, Canada does give a lot of money to Ukraine in the war against Russia. Yes, Canada has provided $22 billion of assistance to Ukraine since February 22. And the idea that Ukraine was going behind Canada's back to siphon off information and intelligence from a high-ranking member of Canada's military intelligence community is a terrible look. And I suspect that the government, it's an embarrassment for the Canadian government. And I suspect that they will try to avoid discussing their reaction in public. I believe publicly they will try to maintain

a united front but behind the scenes i'm sure there will be reproachful conversations where the canadian government indicates that this is unacceptable in the case of ukraine uh this is a country that's in dire straits in desperate straits um you know millions of its population have been displaced its industrial production is being destroyed it is you know entering uh you know the fourth year of a war soon and i guess for them uh anything goes They're going to do whatever is necessary to defend their country to procure information and to achieve what they need to. But, of course, if these allegations are true, this is no way to treat Canada. So often when we're talking about foreign interference, it involves a country that Canada may have a more complicated or even hostile relationship with.

This is something, Steve, you've been reporting on for a while now. Was the alleged involvement of Ukraine surprising? Yes, it was because Ukraine doesn't really come to mind. when you think of foreign interference in Canada. Normally, when we talk about foreign interference in Canada, we talk about countries like Russia, China, Iran, and India. These are countries which have a record of interfering in Canada, trying to alter outcomes, trying to get information,

trying to bend people to their will. But not an ally like this, which has been, you know, the number one recipient of Canadian aid in the last few years. do we know what could motivate an ally to go through back channels like this allegedly well desperation ukraine is almost in the fourth year of its fight for its life and uh its cities especially are being destroyed its population has been displaced it's utterly dependent on western countries for support and the war shows no signs of stopping so you know anything they will do to to help ensure their survival and their victory over Russia, they will do. I don't think it's any more complicated than

that. Does the way this alleged espionage is viewed or handled, does that change when it involves an ally? Yes, I think it does. I think that the Canadian government is likely not to discuss its disappointment publicly. It's going to maintain a united front on this. It's going to try to keep this as far away from a public microphone as they can. What do you think a case like this says about the state of security in Canada's military, especially as auto-injects historic levels of funding into it? What says that they've got problems of the Canadian forces when it comes to oversight of their intelligence operators. You have a senior member of your intelligence command with top secret clearance who repeatedly bypasses his superiors to pursue unapproved relations with a foreign entity and allegedly deceived the chain of command,

with falsified reports. So it indicates a breakdown in their security. And again, none of this has been proven, but the case that military prosecutors laid out is of a man who proceeded with this relationship without approvals, even to the extent of traveling abroad to do so. So Master Warron Officer Matthew Robar

made his first appearance in military court on Monday. What happens next in this case? What happens next is the charges are referred to the Director of Military Prosecutions for review, and if these are approved, then they proceed to a court-martial process. That could take a while, and it's going to be likely a while before defense gets to view the evidence, the detailed evidence against Mr. Robar. The Globe, however, will be following the case closely. All right, Steve, well, thanks again for coming back on the show.

Really appreciate it. You're welcome. After the recording, the Ukrainian embassy provided the globe with the following statement in an email. Quote, we would like to note that the embassy of Ukraine in Canada does not comment on allegations or information attributed to anonymous or unidentified sources. As the embassy has not received any official information or requests from the relevant Canadian authorities on the issues raised in your articles and emails to us, we will not make any statements or comments. We highly value our close partnership and friendship with Canada,

and we are profoundly grateful for all the strong and principled support Canada and Canadians continue to generously provide to Ukraine amid Russia's ongoing brutal war of aggression against Ukraine. Thank you, and we also take this opportunity to extend our season's greetings. That was Stephen Chase, the Globe's senior parliamentary reporter. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Alyssa Wheeler is our Brooke Forbes fellow and our associate producer. Our producers are Madeline White, Mikhail Stein, and Ali Graham. David Crosby edits the show.

Adrian Chong is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening.