Former Conservative Minister’s Allegation Ottawa Citizen Journalist was a Soviet Spy is ‘False’ and ‘Unhinged’, National Security Committee Told

Members of Canada’s national security committee admit they were left “confused” by a former Conservative cabinet minister’s “dumbfounding” testimony alleging an Ottawa Citizen journalist was recruited by the KGB to spy for Russia.

David Pugliese, an award-winning national defence reporter with the Citizen, testified Thursday that former Conservative MP Chris Alexander’s allegations about him are “false” and riddled with basic “factual errors.”

“On October 24, 2024, former Conservative cabinet minister Chris Alexander came before this committee and accused me of being a traitor to my country,” Pugliese told the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

“Hiding behind a cloak of parliamentary privilege, he falsely claimed that I had been recruited as a Russian spy in the 1980s and suggested I am still working as a Russian agent.”

Pugliese told the committee that Alexander’s “unhinged testimony” has resulted in death threats and harassment targeting him and his family.

“Mr. Alexander’s fabricated claims are not only outlandish but are dangerous to my family,” Pugliese said. “There are now calls that I be executed or tortured and that my family be deported — in short, this committee effectively played host to character assassination without authenticating any of the allegations.”

Last month, Alexander presented the committee with photocopies of what he purports to be 40-year-old KGB documents found in an archive somewhere in Ukraine that he obtained through unclear means.

Alexander testified Pugliese operated as a spy for the KGB under the code name “Stuart” and alleged he was still spying for the Kremlin “during this recent period when they have been engaged in overt aggression against Ukraine.”

Pugliese testified that the purported KGB files contain numerous “factual errors,” pointing out he was “not even living in Ottawa at the time cited in the records tabled by Mr. Alexander” and did not work at “the Ottawa Citizen throughout the 1980s.”

Chris Alexander did not respond to multiple requests from PressProgress seeking a response to Pugliese’s testimony challenging the credibility of his evidence.

Alexander, who previously served as Canada’s Ambassador to Afghanistan and later as Stephen Harper’s immigration minister, is best known as the spokesperson for Harper’s xenophobic “barbaric cultural practices hotline,” widely credited with damaging the Conservative Party’s outreach efforts with immigrant diaspora communities.

Alexander now serves as a foreign policy expert at a right-wing think tank called the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

In a public statement, Postmedia, the parent company of the Ottawa Citizen, called Alexander’s allegations “ridiculous and baseless,” emphasizing that Pugliese is a “valued, trusted and esteemed member of the Ottawa Citizen.”

“We reject that accusation and stand firmly behind David.”

The Canadian Association of Journalists said it “wholeheartedly denounces the ridiculous accusations made against David Pugliese,” adding that Alexander’s “claims are dangerous and designed to undermine the credibility of journalists.”

An open letter signed by 59 Canadian journalists credits Pugliese as being “one of Canada’s best journalists” and criticizes MPs for failing to “scrutinize Alexander’s preposterous assertion.”

Reflecting on the incident, several members of the national security committee expressed their own confusion and incredulity about Alexander’s testimony.

“My staff person was giving me updates from the committee and was describing in real terms how sideways it suddenly went from Mr. Alexander’s testimony,” NDP MP Alistair MacGregor told Pugliese.

“We don’t have much experience where someone would come before a committee protected by parliamentary privilege and just go after someone in the way that he did.”

Liberal MP Jennifer O’Connell acknowledged she didn’t disagree with a description of Alexander’s testimony as “dumbfounding and dangerous,” recalling members of the committee looking around at one another confused as he was speaking.

“I too was confused about what was actually being alleged,” O’Connell told Pugliese. “I want you to know that I think we were equally confused and were not understanding the connection.”

“We were shocked by the testimony that took place on the 24th by Mr. Alexander,” Liberal MP Iqwinder Gaheer added, noting his statements could not be subject to a defamation lawsuit since testimony is protected by “parliamentary privilege.”

“The committee didn’t seem to question anything that Mr. Alexander said,” Bloc Québécois MP Kristina Michaud observed. “I was trying to understand what he was about but I didn’t understand the gravity of the accusations that he was making.”

Conservative MP Doug Shipley said the entire incident has made him reflect on “what’s real and what’s not real,” noting it’s “a little ironic” that this would come up in a study of “disinformation.”

Throughout the Q&A session, Pugliese and MPs highlighted numerous holes in the details and logic of Alexander’s underpinning theory.

“Whoever wrote these documents up was not aware of me because a lot of the dates where I was supposed to be in Ottawa, I wasn’t,” Pugliese said. “They described me as a leftist activist — well, throughout the 80s, I was working for military publications, I was correspondent for a Washington publication called Armed Forces Journal which was produced for the US Army.”

“We were writing stories about how to nuke the Soviets off the face of the earth.”

“Those are for communists, those armed forces journals?” asked Conservative MP Dane Lloyd.

Pugliese denied any loyalty to the Soviet Union or any other “pro-Soviet attitudes,” prompting Lloyd ask how it could be “even ideologically consistent for someone who was loyal to the Soviet Union to necessarily be loyal to what the current iteration of the Russian state looks like?”

“That’s a good question,” Pugliese said. “They’re totally two different entities.”

Another revelation Alexander raised at committee was a claim that James Bezan, the Conservative Party’s shadow minister for National Defence, has been the target of intimidation for his past efforts to expose Pugliese’s “covert ties to Moscow.”

Alexander testified: “Previous efforts to expose this journalist’s long-running covert ties to Moscow has resulted in attempts to intimidate current and former Canadian parliamentarians, including my former colleague James Bezan.”

“Are you aware of any of those efforts?” O’Connell asked Pugliese. “I’ve served on a committee with Mr. Bezan on national defence, I have never heard these accusations.”

“When I heard that I thought we are entering into a territory of unhinged testimony,” Pugliese said. “I’ve never intimidated Mr. Bezan, I’m not sure what that’s about.”

Alexander did not clarify who intimidated Pierre Poilievre’s national defence critic or how Bezan came to believe an Ottawa Citizen journalist was a Soviet spy in the first place. Pugliese says he has never been contacted by law enforcement or national security officials.

Bezan, who was not present at Thursday’s national security committee meeting, did not immediately respond to questions from PressProgress asking if he would corroborate Alexander’s testimony.