Court orders review of former informant's human rights complaint against spy agency

The Federal Court has ordered the Canadian Human Rights Commission to re-examine a discrimination complaint against the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)

The Federal Court has ordered the Canadian Human Rights Commission to re-examine a discrimination complaint against the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which was filed by a former informant and child soldier who says the spy agency cost him a security job on Parliament Hill.

Kagusthan Ariaratnam had applied to work for the Parliamentary Protective Service in 2016, but was rejected on security grounds following a meeting between House of Commons and CSIS officials, during which the spy agency disclosed two classified documents that discussed Ariaratnam's mental health, court records show.

Ariaratnam had contact with CSIS in the 2000s about the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, more commonly known as the Tamil Tigers, which he had joined as a teenager while living in Sri Lanka, according to court records.

After he was rejected for the job on Parliament Hill, he complained to CSIS, to the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) and to the human rights commission, and got nowhere.

"I felt betrayed, basically [CSIS] backstabbed me," Ariaratnam, now 50, told CBC News. "I gave them a lot of information."

But on Friday, Federal Court Justice Janet Fuhrer ordered the commission to re-examine his complaint against CSIS which alleges discrimination based on mental health.