U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Jacobson is revealing for the first time that Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle sold both American and Canadian secrets to Russia.

In comments during an interview to be broadcast on CTV's Question Period Sunday, Jacobson said Delisle sold confidential U.S. government information as well as Canadian secrets.

"We don't talk a lot about national security information like this, for obvious reasons," Jacobson told host Kevin Newman.

"I will say this: he pleaded guilty to selling secrets of the United States and secrets of Canada to the Russians. That is obviously not good. We've had these problems in the past and we want to make sure and the Canadians want to make sure that nothing like this is going to happen again."

When pressed to explain further what U.S. secrets were passed on, Jacobson refused to reveal details.

"Well, I'm not going to get into exactly what he passed. But there was a lot of highly classified material," Jacobson said.

Earlier this month, Delisle admitted he had regularly passed military secrets to Russia over a five-year period in exchange for payments of approximately $3,000 a month.

But he didn't apologize. Instead he said people need to move beyond their ideas drawn from Cold War 'spy novels.'

In his Question Period interview with Newman, Jacobson said that, after the Delisle case, the U.S. stands behind the Canadian intelligence system.

"And we have confidence that Canada is a trusted ally and that we can continue to work with them," he said.

Delisle, who was arrested last January, stunned observers on Oct. 10 when he pleaded guilty to three espionage-related charges.

The 41-year-old had been employed as a threat assessment analyst at Trinity, a highly-secretive military facility in Halifax. His position gave him access to intelligence shared by the "Five Eyes"group, which includes Canada, Great Britain, the United States, New Zealand and Australia.

Delisle is due to be sentenced in January, 2013.

So far, the Canadian government has not publicly condemned Russia for the incident.