Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew apologized Wednesday for how Canada's spy agency sullied the personal and professional life of a consular appointee. The apology comes after a report obtained by The Globe and Mail and other news agencies revealed that Bhupinder Singh Liddar was denied a consular appointment to India because of a hasty, slipshod assessment by a rookie CSIS investigator. In the report by Paule Gauthier, the former chairwoman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, a CSIS investigator misinterpreted work Liddar did in the Middle East and Ottawa as long as 30 years ago.And that mistake cost Liddar -- a Jean Chretien appointee -- his job as consul general in Chandigarh, a city in India's Punjab region. "On behalf of the Government of Canada, I wish to take this opportunity to express our sincere regret for the impact the delays related to Mr. Liddar's diplomatic appointment have had on him both personally and professionally," said Pettigrew in a statement. The minister also confirmed that Ottawa has granted Liddar a top-secret security clearance, based on recommendations from Canada's Security and Intelligence Review Committee. Liddar said he was "pleased" with the minister's response, and that he is "delighted that the government has issued a security clearance" to him. "I am also pleased with the SIRC decision and look forward to serving Canada." Gauthier's report, dubbed "Top Secret," offered some of the most strongly worded criticisms against the spy agency ever uttered by an official. It claims CSIS investigators routinely destroy screening interview notes and are not above lying and manipulating information to achieve its ends. Gauthier wrote that CSIS provided her with "misleading answers" to her questions in order to prevent Liddar or the review committee from having information brought to her attention. She added that the committee was "purposefully misled" by CSIS, in an attempt to protect the spy agency from fallout that might prove "embarrassing to the Service in the context of Mr. Liddar's appointment and its subsequent suspension." CSIS has declined to comment, saying it's still reviewing the report. (c) 2005 Bell Globemedia Inc. All Rights Reserved.