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The September 2011 report by CTV reporter Bob Fife on the travel habits of then-chief of the defence staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk infuriated the senior military leadership, according to Defence Department sources.

The documents obtained by the Citizen show that Vice Admiral Bruce Donaldson, the vice chief of the defence staff, called in the NIS to find the source of the alleged leak. The NIS is similar to a major crime unit in a city police force and is supposed to handle sensitive investigations such as deaths, sexual assaults and espionage.

The Sept. 15 2011 broadcast by CTV detailed how Natynczyk spent more than $1.4-million since 2008 flying on the government’s Challenger jets. It detailed trips for fundraising events, hockey and football games and a flight to the Caribbean after Natynczyk missed a chartered holiday flight to St. Maarten because he had to attend a repatriation ceremony.

The television network used Defence Department flight logs obtained legally through the Access to Information law as the basis for the broadcast and clearly stated that in its report.

Information contained in media articles on this matter did not contain information that was not already in the public domain as a result of Access to Information request or had already been reported on by other media sources

But seven days after the broadcast, then-acting Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, Lt.-Col. Gilles Sansterre reported to the NIS that he had received a complaint from the office of the vice chief of the defence staff about a “suspected unauthorized release of information in regards to the use of the CF Challenger Aircraft by the CDS.”

“LCol Sansterre stated that current media reporting contained details as to the purpose of the flights that was outside of the scope of the information released in response to Access to Information request,” the NIS documents noted.