Spy files on Diefenbaker, Pearson destroyed in 1989: newly declassified records

OTTAWA - Canadian security agents compiled dossiers on former prime ministers John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson but the secret files were destroyed in the late 1980s, newly declassified records show.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which inherited the highly sensitive files from the RCMP's security branch, says they were discarded to "respect the privacy rights" of the leaders, both of whom died in the 1970s.

Two intelligence historians dismissed the CSIS explanation as ridiculous.

"How could destroying these files protect Pearson and Dief's privacy when they were already dead?" asked Steve Hewitt, a senior lecturer in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham in England.

Riding roughshod over Dief’s legacy

Eager to paint the country in a Conservative hue, the federal government recently put John Diefenbaker’s name on a prominent Ottawa building, a human rights prize and an icebreaker.

The government is showing much less reverence for the former Tory prime minister’s most enduring achievement – the National Energy Board.

The “Chief” created the NEB in 1959 to ensure, as he put it, that “Canada’s energy resources are used effectively and prudently, to the best advantage of Canadians.”