Commissioner Justice Marie-Josée Hogue listens as a witness testifies at the Foreign Interference Commission in Ottawa on Oct. 15.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s top advisers say they are not investigating why a CSIS surveillance warrant targeting an influential Liberal powerbroker was delayed in the office of then-public safety minister Bill Blair in 2021, three months before a federal election was called.
Chief of staff Katie Telford and deputy chief of staff Brian Clow said they were unaware in 2021 that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was seeking authorization to eavesdrop on conversations of former Ontario cabinet minister Michael Chan, a Liberal organizer and fundraiser in the Chinese-Canadian community.
“None of us in the Prime Minister’s Office are involved in anything to do with warrant processes or to do with warrants,” Ms. Telford told the public inquiry into foreign interference Tuesday.
The inquiry has heard testimony that the warrant sat on the desk of Mr. Blair’s then-chief of staff Zita Astravas for 54 days before it was given to the minister to sign. Ms. Astravas had raised questions with the spy service about a list of people, provided by CSIS, that it had predicted could be intercepted in conversations with Mr. Chan, now deputy mayor of Markham, Ont.
It normally takes four to 10 days to approve CSIS warrants, the inquiry has heard. In that same period in 2021, Mr. Blair approved two CSIS warrants within four to eight days.
Mr. Blair told the inquiry last week that Ms. Astravas had kept him in the dark until the warrant package was presented to him on May 11, 2023. But he did not criticize her for the long delay in bringing it his attention.
Mr. Trudeau’s top aides appeared equally unconcerned about getting to the bottom of what took place. They were repeatedly asked whether they planned to investigate the delay and Mr. Clow said no.
“I look forward to what the inquiry has to say about whatever happened,” Ms. Telford said.
Mr. Clow added: “This commission is looking at that very question. We look forward to the commission’s work and the conclusions.”
The inquiry wraps up its hearings Wednesday when the Prime Minister will spend the day testifying. The commission will hear from experts on recommendations until Oct. 25 on how to counter foreign interference.
In testimony before the inquiry last week, Ms. Astravas did not offer a clear explanation for the 54-day delay. She had numerous memory lapses about how she handled the warrant, including when exactly she first informed Mr. Blair about it.
Ms. Telford and Mr. Clow acknowledged at the Hogue inquiry Tuesday that they regard Ms. Astravas as a friend. Ms. Telford said she hired Ms. Astravas to work in the 2015 election campaign and later as issues management adviser in the PMO. Ms. Astravas had been a top aide to former premier Kathleen Wynne and personally knew Mr. Chan when he served in the Ontario government cabinet.
The two Trudeau advisers backed up Ms. Astravas’s testimony that she did not tip them off that Mr. Chan was a subject of a warrant nor provide them the list of names of other people CSIS predicted would also be picked up talking during the surveillance – a requirement for such applications. Known as the Vanweenan list, it presumably could have included Liberals, both elected and not.
“When this issue in the last few weeks had become public, we have had conversations and I have spoken to Zita directly and she told me exactly what she told the commission,” Mr. Clow said.
The inquiry heard that a day after Ms. Astravas asked for a CSIS briefing on the application in 2021, an internal e-mail was sent to then-CSIS director David Vigneault in which a spy service official “expressed concern that the warrant application was in danger of not being approved by the minister.”
Coyne: The chaos of party nomination races is no longer a joke – it’s a threat to national security
In testimony at the inquiry Tuesday, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said CSIS warrants are the “crown jewels” because of their sensitivity and he moves quickly to approve them.
“I try to turn them around the same day if I am in Ottawa. I know how important it is and I want them to get on with their work,” he said.
Government counsel has objected to any mention of Mr. Chan’s name at the inquiry, headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, on grounds of national security, although Mr. Blair testified in April that the Liberal operative was the target.
In other testimony, Ms. Telford talked down the need for Elections Canada or other bodies to regulate how political parties police their nominations.
“It is a pretty complex space: to enter into greater regulation within nominations,” she said. “It’s complex because I think different political parties make different choices because of different principles that they stand by, on how their political parties should operate, what their primary focus is when it comes to a nomination, when it comes to how they create their membership and their supporter base and so on.”
In June, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) recommended that nomination races to come under the jurisdiction of the Canada Elections Act.
The Liberal Party allows foreigners to vote in nomination races for their candidates and does not require party members be Canadian citizens or even permanent residents.
The inquiry has heard CSIS warned the Liberal Party in 2019, including the Prime Minister, that MP Han Dong won the nomination in the riding of Don Valley North with help from the Chinese consulate in Toronto. About 175 to 200 international students were bused from outside the riding to vote for Mr. Dong. The inquiry heard the Chinese consulate had threatened to withdraw their student visas if they didn’t vote for Mr. Dong. The students were also provided with fraudulent residence papers.
Ms. Telford testified that she was not aware that CSIS was seeking a particular warrant at the time it was sought.