A Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) official was concerned a request for intrusive surveillance on an Ontario politician wouldn’t be approved by then-Public Safety Minister Bill Blair after the agency met with his chief of staff, the Foreign Interference Commission disclosed.
Evidence disclosed by the commission on Oct. 9 says an unidentified CSIS official sent an internal email in March 2021 in which concern “that the warrant application package was in danger of not being approved by the Minister” was expressed.
The comment from the CSIS official came the day after the spy agency had briefed Blair’s then-chief of staff Zita Astravas on the warrant application in the spring of 2021. An internal CSIS email said Astravas had asked during the briefing “how the activities described met the threshold to obtain a warrant,” the commission said in Astravas’ interview summary.
“Ms. Astravas testified that the questions she asked were typical of those she would ask of a warrant application,” says the summary.
The commission has been investigating the reasons behind the 54-day delay in Blair’s signing of the 2021 warrant application. Once the minister approves a warrant, which typically seeks authorization for intrusive measures like intercepting communications, it is forwarded to a federal court judge for review.
Blair, now defence minister, previously said he approved the warrant a few hours after it was presented to him in May 2021. This has raised the question of why Astravas did not give him the warrant application earlier.
Astravas told the inquiry on Oct. 9 she had not intentionally delayed presenting the warrant to Blair. She said the warrant was never in danger of not being approved and that this was not a message she had conveyed during her initial briefing with CSIS.
“Why then did it take until day 54 for the minister to become aware that this warrant was awaiting his approval?” asked a commission counsel.
“We worked on prioritizing items for the minister’s consideration with CSIS,” Astravas said. “As soon as the [CSIS] director had indicated that he would like to put this warrant on the agenda, it was arranged within days.”
Approval Time
The commission has heard that warrants are usually approved within four to 10 days. Two separate warrants had also been signed by Blair during the same timeframe with a turnaround time of four to eight days.The subject of the warrant application being probed by the commission has not been disclosed during inquiry proceedings.
Astravas said she had not disclosed the subject of the warrant to Blair during the 54-day period before its approval.
“The subject of the warrant had been a matter of discussion with the Service [CSIS] outside of a warrant process for some time, and so there was an awareness of an individual and awareness of a warrant, but we did not discuss the specific the document itself because of the classification of it,” she said.
Astravas told the inquiry she had “become familiar with a number of individuals” over her career and that whenever an individual she was familiar with was named during discussions with CSIS she would disclose it to the agency’s director. Astravas said she disclosed this to CSIS the first time the individual, presumably Michael Chan, was named in a briefing and during the initial briefing on the warrant application.
Vanweenan List
Aside from the initial briefing with CSIS on the warrant, which took place 13 days after CSIS had sent the warrant to Public Safety, the commission heard that Astravas had requested a follow-up meeting with the spy agency to discuss the “Vanweenan list.”This list appears as an annex to warrant applications seeking to intercept a subject’s communications and identifies the individuals whose conversations might be intercepted incidentally.
“The briefing was to help her understand what a Vanweenan list was, how it came to be, and what impact the warrant would have on the individuals listed,” Astravas’ interview summary with the commission said.
Astravas told the Oct. 9 public hearing she already knew what Vanweenan lists were and had seen them before in previous warrant applications.
“You saw other warrants before, those warrants would have had lists like this,” said Sujit Choudhy, counsel for NDP MP Jenny Kwan. “You never asked about those lists, but for some reason for this warrant, you asked about that list.”
“I had asked for a briefing on the Vanweenan list in this time period” for that warrant, said Astravas.
Choudhry asked if Astravas recognized any names on the list and she said she could not “discuss the contents of a Vanweenan list or a specific warrant in this forum.”
Gib van Ert, counsel for Tory MP Michael Chong, questioned Astravas on her testimony and said he couldn’t find a concrete explanation of why it took 54 days for Blair to sign the warrant application.
Van Ert suggested Astravas was “deeply concerned with the operations of your party and your government, and having seen how deeply involved this warrant would bring CSIS with the affairs of your party and your government, you didn’t want it to go ahead, and if it had to go ahead, you wanted to slow walk it.”
“I cannot talk about the specifics of any warrant, but I can tell you that your assumptions are categorically false,” she said.
Van Ert continued the accusation, saying “The warrant concerned high ranking members of your party, and also people you had known for years, and that’s why you didn’t want to see it go ahead.”
“Again, that is false,” replied Astravas. “And let me remind you that Minister Blair has approved every warrant that has been put in front of him.”
Blair will appear before the inquiry on Oct. 11.
