Josaphat Brunet (1902-1974) was a senior police officer in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. In 1956 he was the founding director of 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 Intellig ...

. In 1958 he was promoted to Deputy Commissioner of the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

. Following his retirement from the RCMP he became, briefly, the director of Security for the National Bank of Canada. Later in 1960 he was appointed Director General of the

Sûreté du Québec The (SQ; , ) is the provincial police service for the Canadian province of Quebec. No official English name exists, but the agency's name is sometimes translated to 'Quebec Provincial Police' or QPP in English-language sources. The headquarters ...

, a post he held for five years. Brunet's son, Gilles Brunet, followed his father into the RCMP Security Service, where, at first, he seemed destined for promotion. But, in 1973, he was fired from the RCMP, due to ties to organized crime figures. Josaphat Brunet died in 1974. Western intelligence agencies would later learn that Josaphat's son Gilles had become a double agent for the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and had been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to betray Canada and its allies. Another man, Leslie James Bennett, had been fired due to CIA suspicions that he was the mole within the RCMP. Commentators on intelligence matters would point out that Josaphat's role as the founding director of Canada's spy-catching agency had eased his son Gilles's attempts to evade detection, because he was "one of us".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brunet, Josaphat 1902 births 1974 deaths Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers Sûreté du Québec