Former senior Liberal aide denies delaying CSIS warrant authorization to protect party

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OTTAWA – Former Public Safety Minister Bill Blair’s chief of staff categorically denied delaying the approval of a CSIS electronic and entry warrant application allegedly targeting an influential Liberal powerbroker in 2021 during public testimony Wednesday.

Speaking at the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference (PIFI) on Wednesday evening, former senior Liberal aide Zita Astravas repeatedly said claims she “slow walked” the warrant authorization for political reasons were “categorically false.”

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But during her testimony, Astravas never clearly explained why 54 days went by between the moment she received the CSIS warrant authorization request in March 2021 and the moment the document was put to Minister Blair to sign on May 11.

Lawyers participating in the inquiry as well as a Globe & Mail report last year allege the target of the warrant was Michael Chan, an influential Liberal powerbroker and former Ontario minister. Government lawyers have repeatedly refused to confirm or deny who was the target of the warrant.

Chan, currently the deputy mayor of Markham, has always denied suspicions by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). The spy agency has long been suspected Chan had close ties with Chinese consulate members in Toronto.

Last week, current and former top CSIS officials said agents had been “very frustrated” by weeks of delays to get Blair to authorize the warrant back in 2021. Days later, PIFI announced it was calling Astravas as a last-minute witness.

The 54-day delay is noteworthy in light of previous CSIS testimony that it normally took four to 10 days for the minister to sign such an authorization. Commission counsel also revealed while the document sat with Astravas, Blair signed two other warrant authorizations within four to eight days.

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When asked repeatedly by counsel what explained the delay, Astravas obfuscated by saying that neither ex-CSIS Director David Vigneault or former Public Safety deputy minister Rod Stewart said anything to Blair while waiting for the minister’s authorization.

“There were several opportunities (when) the director and the deputy minister could have raised and directed his attention to this matter. It was certainly afforded to them, and it was not raised,” she said.

But her responses did not appear to satisfy lawyers for Conservative MP Michael Chong and NDP MP Jenny Kwan, who theorized that she may have sat on the warrant authorization for partisan reasons.

“I put to you, madam, the reason for the delay was simply this: looking at the warrant (and related documents), you saw that it was deeply concerned with the operations of your party and your government,” Chong’s lawyer Gib van Ert posited during a particularly testy exchange.

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“And having seen how deeply involved this warrant would bring CSIS with the affairs of your party and your government, you didn’t want it to go ahead. And if it had to go ahead, you wanted to slow walk it. What do you say to that?,” he asked.

Astravas flatly denied his claim. “I can tell you that your assumptions are categorically false,” she responded.

When Kwan’s lawyer Sujit Chaudhry later said that it was Astravas’ job to notify Blair that there was a warrant awaiting his signature, the longtime Liberal aide again pointed the finger to Vigneault and Stewart.

She also noted that it took three weeks for the Federal Court to approve the warrant after Blair had signed the authorization.

Finally, she added that Blair had ultimately approved all warrant authorizations from CSIS during his tenure as public safety minister.

Blair is expected to testify at PIFI on Friday. In a statement last week, he said Astravas had not advised him of a pending warrant application until the day he signed it.

During her testimony, Astravas offered what appeared to be a different version. She said Blair was “aware of a warrant” with his office in the days or weeks before he signed it, but she did not specify which one or if the minister was told who it targeted.

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What also emerged from Astravas’s testimony is that the sharing of intelligence between national security and intelligence agencies, departments and the Public Safety Minister’s office was difficult or inconsistent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier this week, former Public Safety Deputy Minister Rob Stewart said that when the pandemic hit, his department continued providing intelligence binders to the minister’s office.

On Wednesday, Astravas denied that.

“I respect the deputy minister immensely, but he’s mistaken,” she told the inquiry. She added that she has since learned of a “number of pieces of intelligence that were never delivered to myself or the minister.”

National Post
cnardi@postmedia.com

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