Minister Blair Says Unaware Why Warrant on Ontario Politician Was Delayed

Minister of National Defence Bill Blair appears as a witness at the Foreign Interference Commission in Ottawa, on Oct. 11, 2024. Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press

Defence Minister Bill Blair said he doesn’t know what caused the delay in his approval of a warrant application to surveil an Ontario politician while Blair was minister of public safety.

The Foreign Interference Commission heard in recent days that CSIS submitted its warrant 54 days before Blair signed it in the spring of 2021.

Evidence presented at the commission indicated it usually takes four to 10 days for the minister to approve a warrant and Blair testified on Oct. 11 he had approved two separate warrants during the same time period.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had notified Blair’s then-chief of staff, Zita Astravas, before sending the warrant to the minister’s office for approval. Astravas had also met on two other occasions with CSIS about the warrant after it was sent to Blair’s office.

Blair told the inquiry he was not aware about any of these activities undertaken by Astravas. He said he had not learned about the subject of the warrant until reviewing and signing the document on the same day it was put before him in May 2021, 54 days after it left CSIS.

The period was during COVID-19 restrictions, with Blair working mostly from Toronto and requiring attending the CSIS regional office to hold sensitive meetings or discussions.

Blair said he was “not entirely” sure why it took so long for Astravas to provide him the warrant application and that he had not discussed the delay with Astravas. Warrants are approved by the minister of public safety before going to a Federal Court judge for review.

The minister also didn’t say whether he believed there had been a delay or whether it had taken too long for him to be provided the warrant application for signature.

“If there had been any concern with the length of the interval, my expectation would have been that either ... the director of CSIS, or the deputy minister, or my chief [of staff] would have brought that to my attention, and none of them did,” said Blair.

Blair said he never had any concerns he was not being notified in a timely manner about the need to approve a warrant.

Warrant Subject

The subject of the CSIS warrant being examined at the inquiry has not been disclosed during the latest round of public inquiry proceedings.

Past intelligence leaks and related comments by Blair during the inquiry hearings in April identify the subject as current Markham deputy mayor and former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister Michael Chan. Chan has been the subject of previous media reporting suggesting he was a subject of interest of CSIS given his links to Chinese officials.

Chan has not returned requests for comment. He previously told The Globe and Mail that CSIS has “never discussed their concerns with me but continues to unjustifiably harass, intimidate, threaten, and frighten my friends and acquaintances.”

Astravas held various leadership roles under former Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne, during which time Chan was a cabinet minister.

Blair told the inquiry he had been briefed by CSIS about the subject of the warrant several months prior to receiving the warrant application. The minister said there had been no discussion during the briefing with regards to additional investigative steps CSIS was considering taking on the subject.

“Were you surprised on day 54 when you saw the subject matter of the warrant?” asked commission counsel Erin Dann.

“No ma'am,” answered Blair. The minister also said he had not discussed the briefing and the warrant with the Prime Minister’s Office.

Chief of Staff

Blair’s former chief of staff Astravas told the inquiry on Oct. 9 she had not intentionally delayed presenting the warrant to her boss. Astravas said items on the minister’s agenda were prioritized with CSIS’s help.

“As soon as the [CSIS] director had indicated that he would like to put this warrant on the agenda, it was arranged within days,” she said.

Former top CSIS officials involved in this warrant process told the inquiry the delay had been unusual and had made operational staff “very frustrated.”

Blair was questioned on Astravas’s testimony and the three meetings she held with CSIS in relation to the warrant application.

He was presented with evidence from CSIS’s former deputy director of operations Michelle Tessier, who told the commission in private she had briefed Astravas prior to submitting the warrant. This was done “so it did not arrive without warning on the Minister’s desk,” according to Tessier’s interview summary.

Sujit Choudhry, counsel for NDP MP Jenny Kwan, asked Blair if it was common practice for CSIS to provide advance warning to the minister’s chief of staff before sending a warrant application for approval.

“I have no idea, quite frankly,” said Blair. “Because frankly, Ms. Tessier or Ms. Astravas had never told me about this discussion.”

Blair said he did not require a warning “and in fact, in this case, or any other case, I did not receive one.”

The evidence from Astravas provided to the commission in private indicates CSIS then-director David Vigneault had told Blair his agency would be “moving forward with this warrant application.”

Blair said this was not correct. “I was not aware that the CSIS was intending to bring forward a warrant application” before day 54, he said.

Initial Briefing

Four days after CSIS sent the warrant to public safety, it was approved by then-deputy minister Rob Stewart. Nine days later, CSIS provided an initial briefing to Astravas on the warrant.

During that meeting, Astravas asked CSIS “how the activities described met the threshold to obtain a warrant,” according to evidence before the inquiry.

Blair said he was not aware of the meeting, that he wasn’t aware Astravas was asking these types of questions, and that the specific questions had not been asked on his behalf.

“Do you have any views on whether those are appropriate or within the scope of your chief of staff’s role?” asked commission counsel Dann.

“I believe it’s well within the chief of staff’s role to ask questions, but at no time did anyone raise any concerns with me with respect to this process,” said Blair.

The day after Astravas met with CSIS for the initial briefing on the warrant, an unidentified CSIS official sent an internal email raising concerns that the “warrant application package was in danger of not being approved by the Minister,” inquiry evidence shows.

Blair said he had not expressed this concern since he had yet to be made aware of the existence of the warrant.

Vanweenen List

The commission also heard that Astravas had requested a briefing with CSIS to discuss the “Vanweenen list,” an annex to a warrant application which contains a list of names whose communications could be incidentally intercepted.

Astravas didn’t clarify to the commission why she required a briefing on this particular Vanweenen list, since she had reviewed previous warrant applications and was familiar with the process.

The meeting took place after her initial briefing with CSIS and before day 54 when Blair signed the warrant. Blair again said nothing mentioned during the Vanweenen list CSIS briefing with Astravas had been relayed to him.

Blair declined to answer a number of questions pertaining to the list with regards to whether it contained individuals he knows, including other parliamentarians or cabinet colleagues.

“When this warrant application was put before me, I never considered anything else other than my statutory responsibility to review and if appropriate, approve the warrant,” said Blair. “There was no other consideration, and certainly no political consideration.”

The minister was asked by counsel Choudhry whether he would recuse himself from approving a warrant if he “knew the target.”

Blair told the inquiry he has been involved in “very many” warrant applications as a police officer in charge, as an affiant, and as the minister in which he knew the people named.

“I would only recuse myself if I felt the conflict existed,” he said. “And in none of the warrant applications that were ever brought before me did I ever feel that any conflict existed.”

Liberal MP Marco Mendicino, Blair’s successor as minister of public safety, told the inquiry on Oct. 10 he would have expected his staff to recuse themselves if they had a personal relationship with an individual who was the target of a warrant or mentioned in one.

“I do think that there needs to be a constant vigilance around any potential abuses from the elected side of government when taking decisions around foreign interference and political actors,” he said.

The commission will hold will conclude this phase of public hearings next week with the appearance of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, staff from his office, and Public Safety Minister Dominic Leblanc.