Former Public Safety minister Bill Blair says he never received several top-secret documents destined for his desk — including a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) issues management note about China's attempts to target two Canadian members of Parliament.

Testifying before the inquiry into foreign interference Friday, Blair also maintained that he never knew about a warrant application for an investigation into foreign interference until he signed it — 54 days after CSIS had first requested it.

"I can't approve something I don't know anything about," Blair told the inquiry. "So when it was brought to my attention, it was always my practice — and it was more than practice, it was every case — dealt with very promptly."

Blair said he had been briefed on the investigation that led to the warrant application several months earlier, so when he was presented with the warrant it did not come as a surprise.

While the name of the person targeted by the warrant has not been mentioned during the inquiry's public hearings, former Ontario MPP Michael Chan issued a statement earlier this week identifying himself as the target of the warrant.

Former Ontario MPP Michael Chan. (David Donnelly/CBC)

Chan said CSIS obtained the warrant alleging that he had engineered the removal of former Liberal MP Geng Tan as the party's candidate in the Toronto area riding of Don Valley North. He said that CSIS has found no evidence of him doing anything improper, despite 14 years of surveilling him.

While Chan has identified himself as the target of the warrant, the federal government is still trying to prevent the inquiry from allowing certain questions to be asked about the warrant during its public hearings.

Government trying to keep a lid on details of warrant

In a letter dated Oct. 7, shared with CBC News by the commission of inquiry, Department of Justice lawyers Gregory Tzemenakis and Barney Brucker said participants in the inquiry "have made inferences with respect to this warrant which appear to be based on leaked information, the veracity of which has never been publicly confirmed or denied."

Questions to witnesses about the warrant could jeopardize national security, the lawyers wrote.

"We object to that line of questioning on the basis of national security," says the letter. "We respectfully request that the Commission not permit questioning that is likely to cause national security injury."

The letter adds that, under the inquiry's terms of reference, the commissioner leading the inquiry is expected to ensure that the inquiry prevents the disclosure of information that could harm national security or jeopardize investigations.

"Public confirmation or denial of the information by the Government of Canada would create national security injury, erode national security privilege, undermine the protection of classified information in other judicial settings and processes, and create risk to CSIS' investigations," says the letter.

The fact that the warrant targeted a Canadian politician — and included a list of third parties whose communications with him might be intercepted — has led to speculation that someone in government slow-walked the warrant to protect Liberal Party members.

Zita Astravas, former chief of staff to the minister of Public Safety, appears as a witness at the Foreign Interference Commission in Ottawa on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

Blair's former chief of staff, Zita Astravas, told the inquiry earlier in the week that she was briefed on the warrant 13 days after CSIS sent it to Public Safety and received another briefing on the list of third parties, also known as a Vanweenan list.

She denied the delay was for political reasons but could not explain the long delay between her briefing and Blair signing the warrant.

Testifying before the inquiry Friday, Blair repeatedly refused to answer questions about whose names appeared on the list of third parties. He also refused to say whether the list contained names of parliamentarians, cabinet ministers or people he knew.

Blair, a former police officer, insisted political considerations did not affect how he handled the warrant and he had no conflicts of interest in any of the warrant authorizations he signed as Public Safety minister.

Blair said CSIS, his chief of staff and his deputy minister did not raise any concerns about the delay in signing the warrant and there was never any question of him not signing the authorization for the warrant.

While former deputy minister of Public Safety Rob Stewart told the inquiry that briefing binders for Blair continued during the pandemic and were sent to his office, Blair testified that he never received those binders and received very few documents.

He said he only learned that Conservative MP Michael Chong and his family had been the targets of foreign interference by China when he read it in a news report — two years after CSIS prepared a memo for him in 2021 regarding proposed defensive briefings for Chong and Conservative MP Kenny Chui. Blair has said he never received that memo.

In the summary of an interview with Blair in June made public by the inquiry, Blair said he would have expected to be briefed about foreign interference targeting Chong and Chiu.

"Minister Blair stated that he would have been expected to be briefed on intelligence if there was a threat that required his attention as Minister," says the summary. "For any such information, he wanted to have it and would have acted on it. He was not briefed with respect to these individual MPs."

According to the summary, Blair suggested that the top-secret documents failed to reach his desk due to a bureaucratic breakdown.

"He further noted that he had since been advised that when some of the intelligence products listed in the document were sent, the individual to whom they were delivered no longer worked at [Public Safety]," says the summary. "He did not receive any secret or top-secret material from the individual whether that was while the individual was still at [Public Safety] or after he left."

In her testimony earlier in the week, Astravas said she has since discovered that there were a number of documents the minister's office never received.

Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge also testified Friday about the government's efforts to counter disinformation and support media organizations in Canada.

St-Onge said options the government could explore include "demonetizing" disinformation by having social media platforms cut off revenue to accounts that promote disinformation.

Former Public Safety Minister Bill Blair's chief of staff denied Wednesday that she delayed the signing of a Canadian Security and Intelligence Service warrant application because it could have resulted in communications by top members of the Liberal party being captured by the security service. 

Under cross examination by Gib van Ert at the foreign interference inquiry in Ottawa, lawyer for Conservative MP Michael Chong, Zita Astravas was asked why it took 54 days in 2021 for Blair to sign the authorization for a warrant being sought by CSIS for an investigation into foreign interference — far longer than the usual timeline.

"I put it to you madame, that the reason for the delay was simply this. Looking at the warrant, looking at the … list you saw in it that it was deeply concerned with the operations of your party and your government," said Van Ert.

"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." 

"I can tell you that your assumptions are categorically false," Astravas shot back.

Astravas said Blair signed every warrant authorization request he received, including that one.  

Although the inquiry has not heard during its public hearings who was targeted by the warrant, news reports have identified the target as former Ontario MPP Michael Chan.

Wednesday, Chan issued a statement via X, formerly known as Twitter, which confirmed that he has been under CSIS investigation and that CSIS obtained a warrant to wiretap him, alleging that he had engineered the removal of former Liberal MP Geng Tan — which Chan denied. 

"Leaving aside CSIS's outright abuses committed against me and my family in its infiltration of my life as a private citizen (and defiling the sanctity of my home in the process) the obvious question that remains unanswered, or has simply been ignored, is the result of the 14 years of surveillance activity by CSIS," Chan wrote. "What did they find? What have I done wrong?"

"With all of these countless 'investigations,' hundreds of press reports, millions of social media circulations, NOTHING has been found and neither has ONE SHRED of evidence that I had done anything improper been produced."

On Wednesday, Van Ert revealed during the hearing that the Canadian government has sent the inquiry a letter, warning it could jeopardize national security if the name of the person targeted by the warrant were to become public.

Astravas also denied that she had ever shared the names of those whose communications could be intercepted with the prime minister's office.  

Reason for delay still unclear

The inquiry has heard that Astravas was briefed about the warrant before it was sent to Blair's office and was briefed about it 13 days after CSIS had submitted the application for the warrant. She was also briefed on the list that accompanied the warrant, also referred to as a Vanweenan list, which names a series of people whose communications risk also being intercepted when they confer with the target of a warrant.

Sujit Choudhry, lawyer for NDP MP Jenny Kwan, asked why Astravas had asked for a briefing on Vanweenan lists in connection with that warrant when she would have seen similar lists attached to previous warrant applications handled by Blair's office. 

"Did you recognize any of the names on that list?" asked Choudhry. "As you can appreciate, I can't discuss the contents of a Vanweenan list or a specific warrant in this forum and I have spoken with the commission about this," responded Astravas.

Despite Astravas being peppered with questions about the delay in arranging for Blair to be briefed and to sign the warrant, by the end of her testimony, it still wasn't clear why it took so long. Two other warrants that were applied for during that time period were signed with delays of only a few days and Blair had a number of secure conversations with the director of CSIS during that period.

Astravas revealed that Blair was aware of the foreign interference investigation that triggered the warrant before CSIS submitted the application.

She was also questioned on intelligence that revealed that Chong had been targeted by the Chinese government. 

She said she had never received the intelligence and has since learned that it was one of a number of pieces of intelligence that was not delivered to herself or Blair.

Nathalie Drouin, deputy clerk of the Privy Council and national security and intelligence adviser to the prime minister, prepares to appear before the Special Committee on the Canada–People’s Republic of China Relationship in Ottawa on April 29. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

Earlier, the prime minister's national security advisor told the inquiry that while some MPs may have lacked judgment or acted unwisely, none of them have betrayed Canada. 

Nathalie Drouin told the inquiry that the special report of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians in Canada (NSICOP) on foreign interference, made public in June, left her uncomfortable. The committee's report found that some parliamentarians (it didn't name them) had wittingly or unwittingly participated in foreign interference.

"That is not what I see," she told the inquiry Wednesday. "As I said earlier, I have seen inappropriate conduct, I have seen lack of judgment, I have seen individuals who I would perhaps have less confidence in, but I have not seen any MP in our Parliament who spied, sabotaged, who really put the security of Canada at risk.

"I remain extremely confident in the current members of Parliament and to give another impression is to equip foreign countries in their quest to reduce the confidence Canadians have in our democratic system."

Drouin said the intelligence indicates complacency on the part of some people who had connections they shouldn't have had, and suggests some people boasted that they could share information they didn't have.

"The information that NSICOP used does not allow me to arrive at the conclusion that there are traitors in Parliament," she said.

In response to a question from Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who is leading the inquiry, Drouin said she has access to the same information that the committee had, as well as subsequent updates.

Drouin praised the work of NSICOP but said its report focused on parliamentarians, while the focus should be on foreign actors.

The inquiry 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.

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.

Former Public Safety minister Bill Blair has testified that he signed the warrant the day he first saw it. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

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.

Former national security adviser Jody Thomas is set to testify before the foreign interference inquiry this week. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press)

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."

Deputy minister of Public Safety Shawn Tupper appears as a witness at the Foreign Interference Commission in Ottawa on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press)

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.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government was warned more than two years ago that it had to take action to counter threats from state actors like China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, says a summary of a secret cabinet document made public by the foreign interference inquiry Monday.

The government was also warned that hostile activity by state actors (HASA) was on the rise and presented "one of the greatest threats to Canada's national security."

"It described HASA as a multi-faceted threat that targets Canada's strategic interests, the integrity and the security of Canadian institutions and democratic processes, and the ability for members of the public to exercise their Charter-protected rights and freedoms," says the summary of the memorandum written in May 2022.

The summary said the intelligence community had seen the threats increase in volume and intensity and Canada had to do a better job of countering them.

"Canada possesses tools and levers to counter HASA, but these tools require better coordination, and in some cases, modernization to address an increasingly dynamic, complex threat environment characterized by emboldened and aggressive threat actors," the summary said. "The memorandum to cabinet also noted that in some cases, additional resources to bolster Canada's ability to respond to this threat are required."

The memorandum proposed, among other things, making Canada a "harder, more resilient target by taking a whole-of-society approach," taking concrete steps to deter HASA, considering new legislative tools to counter the activity and getting the RCMP to "develop new capabilities and undertake new activities."

Breaking down Trudeau's testimony at foreign interference inquiry | Canada Tonight

Michel Juneau-Katsuya, the former CSIS Asia-Pacific division chief and senior intelligence officer; Sheila Copps, former deputy prime minister; and Duff Conacher, the founder of Democracy Watch, dig into Trudeau’s testimony before a public inquiry on foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

The document does not say what decision, if any, Trudeau's government took in response to the memorandum. 

The Privy Council Office, which serves the prime minister and the cabinet, has not yet responded to questions about the documents released by the inquiry late Monday afternoon.

The inquiry said that, following negotiations with the government, it has been granted unprecedented access to cabinet documents.

"The extraordinary degree of access by the commission to both classified information and information subject to cabinet confidence is unprecedented and reflects the importance of the inquiry's work," said Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue.

Earlier in the day, the inquiry was told that China's foreign interference extends beyond elections to other key areas of Canadian society.

Martin Green, a former top foreign intelligence assessment expert with the Privy Council, said a special report prepared for the Privy Council's Intelligence Assessment Secretariat in January 2022 concluded that China was going beyond merely trying to influence Canada.

"You can't look at foreign interference just solely through the lens of the electoral system," Green told the inquiry. "I think it's much bigger than that. You're seeing ... kind of hybrid tools being brought to bear.

"So in the case of a country like China, there is clearly a very sophisticated tool kit which involves foreign defence, national security and intelligence activities, there's economic coercion, there's military pressure, there's espionage. So there's a suite of tools that are brought to bear that we're seeing much more often."

Green said he consulted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's former national security adviser David Morrison about the special report. He said he later sent the report to Morrison's successor Jody Thomas, and raised the issue with her during a number of meetings.

Green said he couldn't explain why Thomas didn't share the report with Trudeau. The report was completed shortly before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and as truckers began staging a convoy protest in Ottawa against government pandemic measures, which went on to paralyze the nation's capital for three weeks.

"The government's willingness to disclose this information to the commission will assist me in developing recommendations that will help to preserve the integrity of Canada's electoral processes and democratic institutions and enhance Canadians' trust and confidence in their democracy."

The foreign interference inquiry 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.

The inquiry continues Tuesday with testimony from current and former officials from the Public Safety department.