Blair says he ‘expected’ CSIS warrants to be dealt with ‘immediately’ – National

Former Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said he was “not informed” for weeks after CSIS said it told his chief of staff it was seeking approval to investigate an Ontario Liberal power broker in March 2021.

What remains unclear is why, according to the testimony of a CSIS official, the warrant application targeting Michael Chan, a former provincial Liberal minister, sat with Blair’s chief of staff, Zita Astravas, for more than a month before he signed it. the run-up to the 2021 federal elections.

Chan, who remains a major figure in both provincial and federal Liberal circles in Ontario, has long been suspected of close ties to the Chinese Consulate in Toronto and proxies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Canada. media reports – claims he has repeatedly denied.

CSIS’s request to surveil a prominent politician is a rare occurrence and requires the signature of a federal judge, senior officials within the spy agency and Blair, who is now Secretary of Defense.

While the federal investigation into foreign interference continues, no concrete explanation for the delay has been found.

“While it was appropriate for my staff and CSIS to ensure that submissions were accurate and complete before being submitted to me, it was and has always been my expectation that applications for arrest warrants would be processed correctly and expeditiously,” Blairs said statement to Global News.

Receive national news daily

Get the day’s top news, political, economic and current headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.

Astravas, who now works for lobbying firm Wellington Advocates, did not respond to a text message and email on Tuesday.

Last week, Judge Marie-Josée Hogue’s Committee on Foreign Interference heard evidence that CSIS had notified Astravas of the warrant in early March and handed the warrant to the office shortly after the briefing.

Michelle Tessier, the agency’s former deputy director of operations, testified that CSIS headquarters, a regional office and agents were “frustrated” by a perceived delay in approving the order to oversee Chan, now the deputy mayor of Markham, Ont.

Chan did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. He is currently suing CSIS over the leaked information and against two reporters, including a former Global News employee.

Typically, CSIS expects a 10-day period between issuing an order for approval by the Secretary of Public Safety and a decision. It is not clear why this order took significantly longer, although former CSIS Director David Vigneault testified that he was not concerned about the delay and that when he brought it to Blair’s attention, it was approved that day.

Stephanie Carvin, a former CSIS analyst who now teaches at Carleton University, said the agency would have done significant work to even get to the point of a warrant.

That’s because politicians – along with the media, religious institutions and academia – are considered particularly “sensitive” sectors when it comes to CSIS surveillance.

“Everyone remembers the lessons of the 1970s and, you know, frisking politicians and journalists and things like that, and how inappropriate and how destructive that really was to the community as a whole,” Carvin said, referring to the excesses of the RCMPs . intelligence agency that led to the creation of CSIS in the first place.

“And I don’t really think there’s any point in going back to that.”

Carvin said that if the agency were to take even a preliminary look at a politician’s actions, there would be significant involvement from the highest levels of CSIS — perhaps even including the director. And if the agency wanted to actively monitor a politician, it would require not only high-level approval but also a significant amount of resources.

“I mean, the agency only has so many resources. It’s not that it’s easy to get a warrant, (and) just because you have a warrant doesn’t mean it’s easy to gather that information ,” Carvin said.

“Once you get to that point, not only from a legal standpoint … but also from a practical standpoint, it’s something you’re willing to put a lot of resources into because you’re concerned.”

&copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.