Ex-diplomat says Poland asked him to keep tabs on Alberta politician
CBC
A month after Global Affairs Canada told CBC News it was looking into claims that the Polish government asked one of its diplomats in Canada to gather information on a former Alberta cabinet minister, the dismissed consul general at the centre of the affair says he still hasn't heard from the department on the matter.
Andrzej Mańkowski told CBC News the only official he has heard from is a B.C. bureaucrat who asked him to return his diplomatic licence plates and identification.
"[Officials with Global Affairs] haven't tried talking to me," he said.
Mańkowski showed CBC News a copy of a letter dated Aug. 31 he received from B.C.'s Chief of Protocol for Intergovernmental Relations Lucy Lobmeier asking him to turn in his identity card and to return his diplomatic plates "within 30 days of this letter." She also thanked him for his service.
Mańkowski alleges he was dismissed from his post in late July after he refused to carry out orders from the Polish government to gather information about Thomas Lukaszuk, a former deputy premier of Alberta who often provides commentary to CBC News about the province's politics.
"It's clear that Polish diplomacy during Communist times, the main responsibility was to collect information, to gather information on some Polish representatives abroad," Mańkowski said, adding he felt as if the request was a throwback to that time.
"The analogy's extremely evident."
Last month, Global Affairs Canada said it was taking the allegations seriously.
In August, Lukaszuk said he believed he had been targeted by Poland's department of foreign affairs over his activism against a controversial Polish pastor, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, who has private radio and television stations in Poland.
Rydzyk, who has ties to the Polish government, has been criticized for delivering sermons featuring homophobic and anti-Semitic views and for preaching against the European Union.
Lukaszuk also shared what he said were encrypted messages Polish government officials sent to Mańkowski asking him over the course of a year to prepare notes on the former Alberta politician.
CBC News has not independently verified these messages were official government communications. Mańkowski did not dispute their veracity in his interview.
"Asking for my opinion about Lukaszuk was just a kind of trap, was just a political test of my loyalty," he said.
Poland's Ambassador to Canada Witold Dzielski called the allegation "totally absurd."
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