Foreign interference inquiry probes CSIS warrant application that lingered on minister's desk

A Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) warrant application that lingered in then-Public Safety minister Bill Blair's office for 54 days included a list of people whose communications were at risk of being intercepted if they communicated with the target of the warrant, the foreign interference inquiry was told Tuesday.

Testifying before the inquiry, Rob Stewart, former deputy minister of Public Safety, was asked repeatedly about the process that led to the long delay in Blair approving the warrant.

"Mr. Stewart testified that there were questions and it would have taken CSIS some time to get the minister and his staff comfortable with this particular warrant," Stewart told commission counsel, according to his witness statement.

"Mr. Stewart surmised that questions would probably have been asked about certain processes related to the execution of the warrant."

Gib van Ert, lawyer for Conservative MP Michael Chong, asked Stewart whether it would have taken "some time" because of the names on CSIS's warrant list of individuals whose communications could be intercepted. Stewart replied that it was a general source of concern for ministers' offices and he could not discuss the specifics of the warrant.

While the target of the warrant has not been named, previous news reports have identified former Ontario MPP Michael Chan. If so, the list of people CSIS thought might communicate with Chan could include individuals active in federal or provincial politics.

Testifying before the inquiry in early April, Chan said news reports stating that he had met clandestinely with a Chinese diplomatic official, or had tried to engineer the ouster of former Liberal MP Geng Tan, were inaccurate. 

While officials, citing national security, have said very little about the nature of the warrant, Stewart told the inquiry that Justice Marie Josée Hogue, who is leading the foreign interference inquiry, has been briefed on its full substance.

Earlier in the inquiry, CSIS officials testified that it took weeks — much longer than is usual — for Blair to sign the warrant application once it was sent to Zita Astravas, his then-chief of staff. Blair has testified that he signed the application on the day he first saw it.

In his witness statement, Stewart said Blair always read the applications thoroughly and typically wanted to talk to the director of CSIS before he signed them.

Stewart was also asked about a reference in his witness interview to a briefing CSIS gave Blair's ministerial staff in relation to the warrant, and a briefing note to CSIS Director David Vigneault.

"Mr. Stewart was asked about a briefing note to the Director that contained details that Mr. Stewart was not aware of at the time that the briefing took place," says the summary of his witness interview. "Had he known about this information at the time, he would have raised concerns."

Asked Tuesday about those concerns, Stewart said he could not reveal what they were for reasons of national security.

Although Astravas is expected to testify that once the pandemic hit, the minister's office was no longer provided with binders of intelligence, Stewart and former senior assistant deputy minister Dominic Rochon told the inquiry Public Safety continued to produce hard copy binders and send them to the minister's office.

They told the inquiry that if Blair was in Toronto and something had to be dealt with quickly, it could be printed out at the CSIS office in Toronto and a CSIS official would bring it to the minister to read or sign.

Astravas, who recently was added to the witness list, is set to testify on her own late Wednesday afternoon, following a panel of top officials from the Privy Council, including former national security adviser Jody Thomas.

The inquiry has heard testimony about the establishment by China of so-called "police stations" in different cities across Canada. In 2023, following a report by the NGO Safeguard Defenders, the RCMP said it was investigating centres set up by the Chinese government. The centres have been accused of being used to harass and intimidate members of the Chinese community in Canada.

On Tuesday, Public Safety deputy minister Shawn Tupper revealed that while Safeguard Defenders identified five "police stations" which have since been shut down, Chinese foreign interference went beyond those sites.

"In the NGO report, they had identified five centres of operation and at the time, early on, we were focused on those areas of activity that we were aware of," Tupper told the inquiry. "We have subsequently learned that, indeed, there were other activities in the country."

"It would be similar activities, just taking place in different locations," he later told reporters. "It was by and large the same kind of activity. It ended up that we discovered there were more sites."

Tupper did not identify the other sites or say how many had been set up.

"We were able to do the same thing with the original sites that we discovered, which is to engage with the community and inform them and try to address the kind of activity that was ongoing," he said.

Earlier in the day, Tupper told the inquiry that one of the challenges when dealing with the "police station" community centres was that they were being operated by Canadian citizens and didn't meet the threshold for criminal charges. Disrupting their operations by talking with local communities and showing a visible police presence proved effective, he said.

The foreign interference inquiry, headed by Hogue, was set up following media reports which accused China of interfering in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

In her initial report, made public in May, Hogue found that while it was possible that foreign interference occurred in a small number of ridings, she concluded it did not affect the overall election results.