Former public safety minister Bill Blair said he “was not advised” for weeks after CSIS says it told his chief of staff that it was seeking approval to investigate an Ontario Liberal powerbroker in March 2021.
What remains unclear is why, according to testimony from a CSIS official, the warrant application targeting Michael Chan, a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister, sat with Blair’s chief of staff, Zita Astravas, for more than a month before he signed off on it in the run-up to the 2021 federal election.
Chan, who remains a significant figure in both provincial and federal Liberal circles in Ontario, has long been suspected of close ties to the Chinese consulate in Toronto and proxies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Canada, according to media reports – claims he has repeatedly denied.
CSIS requesting to surveil a prominent politician is a rare occurrence and would require the sign-off by a federal judge, senior officials …