Bower Featherstone was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

who was convicted of espionage in 1966. Featherstone was a

lithographer Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

who worked for the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. A promising young officer in the

RCMP Security Service The RCMP Security Service (french: Service de sécurité de la GRC) was a branch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that had responsibility for domestic intelligence and security in Canada. It was replaced by the Canadian Security Intellige ...

, Gilles G. Brunet, played a significant role in his conviction, work for which he won a promotion. His handler was Eugen Kourianov. According to

Nigel West Rupert William Simon Allason (born 8 November 1951) is a British former Conservative Party politician and professional author. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Torbay in Devon, from 1987 to 1997. He writes books and articles on the subj ...

, Kourianov was suddenly recalled to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, suggesting a mole had tipped of the Soviets. Decades later western intelligence learned that Brunet, the young officer who won promotion for his work in convicting Featherstone, had also been a mole. The main document he was convicted of handing over to the Soviets was a confidential chart of two shipwrecks southeast of

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

. Although he was convicted of violating Canada's Official Secrets Act none of the documents he passed on was actually secret. Featherstone was the first individual to be convicted under the Official Secrets Act since the trials that followed the defection of

Igor Gouzenko Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko (russian: Игорь Сергеевич Гузенко ; January 26, 1919 – June 25, 1982) was a cipher clerk for the Soviet embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, and a lieutenant of the GRU (Main Intelligence Direc ...

in the late 1940s. Featherstone received a 30-month sentence, and served 10 months—2 months in the

maximum security Maximum Security may refer to: * Supermax, "control-unit" prisons, or units within prisons * Maximum Security (comics), a comic book miniseries published by Marvel Comics * ''Maximum Security'' (Tony MacAlpine album), 1987 * ''Maximum Security'' ...

Collin's Bay Penitentiary, and 8 months at a minimum security forestry camp—before he was paroled.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Featherstone, Bower 1940 births 20th-century Canadian civil servants Canadian people convicted of spying for the Soviet Union Living people