Minister of National Defence Bill Blair testifies at the Foreign Interference Commission on Oct. 11.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
Former public safety minister Bill Blair pleaded ignorance Friday at the public inquiry into foreign interference, saying he had no knowledge of either the 54-day delay in authorizing a warrant to surveil Liberal powerbroker Michael Chan or China’s targeting of a prominent Conservative MP in 2021.
Mr. Blair, now Defence Minister, told the inquiry that he only learned the Chan warrant was held up in his office and that Beijing conducted an influence operation against Conservative foreign-affairs critic Michael Chong after they were reported in The Globe and Mail in 2023.
“It wasn’t until it was reported in the newspapers that there was some concern being expressed by an anonymous informant with respect to a delay that I became aware that concern even existed,” he said of the warrant delay, noting that in 2023 he was no longer public safety minister.
Mr. Blair was recalled to the inquiry to explain why it took 54 days for his office to sign the warrant application against Mr. Chan, an influential Liberal organizer and fundraiser in the Chinese-Canadian community.
The inquiry also wanted to know why Mr. Blair never read CSIS intelligence reports, addressed to him, about China’s targeting of Mr. Chong and fellow Conservative MP Kenny Chiu in May, 2021. Beijing was gathering information on Mr. Chong and his Hong Kong relatives to gain leverage over the MP, a critic of its human-rights abuses.
Mr. Blair insisted he only learned the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had delivered the surveillance warrant application to his office in mid-March after the package was presented to him to sign on May 11, 2021. It normally takes four to 10 days to approve CSIS warrants, the inquiry has heard.
The inquiry also heard that his then-chief of staff Zita Astravas, a former senior adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, had sat on the warrant and expressed concerns to CSIS about some of the people who could be picked up in conversations with Mr. Chan through surveillance.
In testimony Friday, Mr. Blair declined to say whether any parliamentarians or cabinet ministers were on what is known as the Vanweenan list. CSIS warrants are required to list who else besides the target might be picked up on the surveillance.
“I’m not going to say anything that would tend to identify any individual on that list, because it would be quite improper,” he said.
Mr. Blair said Ms. Astravas, who was responsible for overseeing warrants, never told him about the CSIS request to wiretap Mr. Chan’s home, office computers and vehicles until he saw the package at the spy agency’s Toronto offices almost eight weeks later.
The minister testified he talked to then-CSIS director David Vigneault about Mr. Chan several months before the warrant request. But Mr. Blair said there was no indication in that meeting that CSIS wanted to surveil the former Ontario cabinet minister, who is now deputy mayor of Markham, Ont.
Mr. Blair did not criticize Ms. Astravas for holding up the warrant but acknowledged the delay should have been brought to his attention.
“I expect that there is a certain amount of due diligence that takes place between the agency, the deputy minister and my office,” he said. “If there had been any concern about the length of the interval, my expectation would have been that either the agency head, the director of CSIS, or my deputy minister or my chief would have brought it to my attention. And none of them did.”
Asked by the lawyer for former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole whether he looked at the date on the warrant, Mr. Blair said: “I have no recollection of what the date on any of those applications were, but I did brief through the application to determine its substance.”
The inquiry’s counsel also wanted to know why his then-deputy minister Rob Stewart had testified that it would have taken some time for the minister and his staff to get comfortable with a warrant involving such an influential Liberal insider.
“Frankly, I do not know what the deputy minister is talking about, but I can tell you that the warrant package was presented to me on the date it was presented,” he said, insisting political considerations were not involved in the delay or his approval.
“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. There was no other consideration, and certainly no political consideration,” he said.
Mr. Blair was also presented with three top-secret CSIS documents, addressed to his attention, about the targeting of Mr. Chong; a CSIS briefing to Mr. Chong and Mr. Chiu in May, 2021; and a presentation outlining China’s extensive interference operations in Canada.
He said he never saw those reports. It was only after The Globe and Mail revealed in May, 2023, the targeting of Mr. Chong and his family that he became aware of what was going on.
“It was the first time that I had heard Mr. Chong’s name mentioned in relation to any matter of foreign interference. And then, on further inquiry, it was told me that I, apparently I had been on a mailing list, but that that mail had never been delivered to me.”
Mr. Blair said he was troubled by the Globe report and would have liked to have known about China’s operations. “I would want to know what steps are being taken in order to, first of all, inform Mr. Chong and what steps were being taken to ensure his safety and the safety of his family,” he said.
He also contradicted Mr. Stewart and another senior public safety official who told the inquiry earlier this week that during the pandemic they continued to prepare intelligence binders for the minister and deliver them to the public safety minister’s office in Ottawa.
Mr. Stewart said Mr. Blair’s chief of staff would have to go to the Ottawa office and look at the binders. If Mr. Blair was in Toronto, there was an arrangement that would enable intelligence briefs to be delivered to his home or he could go to the CSIS office in the city to read them, the officials said.
“That’s not correct,” Mr. Blair said when asked whether public safety had continued to produce binders and deliver them to his minister’s office.