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    Blair sagt, er hätte nie gewusst, dass der Haftbefehl des CSIS 54 Tage lang in seinem Büro lag


    Blair sagt, er hätte nie gewusst, dass der Haftbefehl des CSIS 54 Tage lang in seinem Büro lag

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-blair-says-he-never-knew-csis-warrant-sat-in-his-office-for-54-days/

    View 27 Comments

    27 Comments

    1. konathegreat on

      I’m getting the sense that either our Liberal Ministers are full of shit or entirely inept.

      They all seem to say “I didn’t know about this or that”.

    2. Glacial_Shield_W on

      This feels like something I just said, but here we go again. The options are 1. He is telling the truth, and that is insane. Or 2. He is lying, and that is insane.

    3. CamberMacRorie on

      Why even have ministers at this point. They don’t seem to actually do or o ow anything.

    4. CaliperLee62 on

      >*Former public safety minister Bill Blair pleaded ignorance Friday at the public inquiry into foreign interference, saying he had no knowledge of a 54-day delay in authorizing a warrant to surveil Liberal powerbroker Michael Chan or China’s targeting of a prominent Conservative MP in 2021.*

      >*Mr. Blair, now Defence Minister, told the inquiry that he only learned the Chan warrant was held up in his office and Beijing’s conducted an influence operation against Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong after they were reported in The Globe and Mail in 2023.*

      >*“It wasn’t until it was reported in the newspapers that there was some concern being expressed by an anonymous informant with respect to a delay that I became aware that concern even existed,” he said of the warrant delay, noting that in 2023 he was no longer public safety minister.*

      >*Mr. Blair was recalled to the inquiry to explain why it took 54 days for his office to sign the warrant application against Mr. Chan, an influential Liberal organizer and fundraiser in the Chinese Canadian community. The inquiry also wanted to know why he never read CSIS intelligence reports, addressed to him, about China’s targeting of Mr. Chong and fellow Conservative MP Kenny Chiu in May, 2021. Beijing was gathering information on Mr. Chong and his Hong Kong relatives to gain leverage over the MP, a critic of its human-rights abuses.*

      >*Mr. Blair insisted he only learned the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had delivered the surveillance warrant application to his office in mid-March after the package was presented to him to sign on May 11, 2021. It normally takes four to 10 days to approve CSIS warrants, the inquiry has heard.*

      >***The inquiry also heard that his then-chief of staff Zita Astravas, a former senior adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, had sat on the warrant and expressed concerns to CSIS about some of the people who could be picked up in conversations with Mr. Chan through surveillance.***

      [I think at this point we all know why.](https://www.thebureau.news/p/warrant-delayed-by-minister-blairs)

    5. Windatar on

      This type of corruption shit is the stuff we started hearing about from people in Harpers team right before he got kicked out of office in 2015.

      Just once I would like a government that isn’t full of corrupt inept losers.

    6. atticusfinch1973 on

      Since he’s now Minister of Defense, I hope it doesn’t take 54 days to respond to external threats to our borders.

    7. Gears_and_Beers on

      Couldn’t this be tested?What’s the average time for warrants through his office and what’s the average when that warrant is for good friends of your boss. If the two numbers aren’t the same perhaps it’s time for more criminal charges.

      Are they not tracking basic KPIs for these processes? Shouldn’t there have been documented follow up after a week, 2 weeks, a month?

    8. Laughing_Zero on

      Bet you they’d notice very quickly if their paycheck wasn’t deposited…

    11. HanSolo5643 on

      So again, we have multiple options.

      1. Bill Blair is a complete idiot who doesn’t know what’s going on around him.

      2. His office is such a mess that he loses things easily.

      3. He knew about the CSIS warrant and chose not to sign it for 54 days because he and the people in his office and the Liberals were busy getting rid of damming evidence.

      Neither of these 3 options is very good.

    12. Belstaff on

      Couldn’t see them due to the bright firelight of all those documents burning.

    16. bezerko888 on

      These traitors and criminals are paid too much for not doing their jobs.

    17. big_dog_redditor on

      Blair is an idiot and ignorant, all mixed into one stupid meat bag. He brings nothing to our Federal government. If he is talking, he is lying.

    18. imaginary48 on

      If he’s lying, then he’s completely inept and incompetent.

      If he’s telling the truth, then he’s corrupt and undermining our democracy.

    19. Flanman1337 on

      I see none of these commenters are from Toronto. We knew he was ineffective and useless tool as Commissioner of the Toronto Police Service. He’s a pro at failing upward.

    20. Just-sendit on

      Convenient. The blatant disregard for our national security is concerning.

    21. CaliperLee62 on

      [Bill Blair Dodges Question on Whether Michael Chan Warrant Named Cabinet Colleagues: Hogue Commission – “Did you recognize any of the people on the Van Weenen list as being parliamentarians?” Commission lawyer asked Blair.](https://www.thebureau.news/p/bill-blair-dodges-question-on-whether)

      >***OTTAWA, Canada*** *— After relentless rounds of gritty questioning aimed at exposing inconsistencies in the testimony of former Liberal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair and his top political aide Zita Astravas—who, during CSIS’s March 2021 application for a wiretap on Liberal Party powerbroker Michael Chan, took the unprecedented step of inquiring into the list of people that could be exposed to the warrant’s surveillance—a Hogue Commission lawyer got to the point.*

      >*“Did you recognize any of the people on the Van Weenen list as being parliamentarians?” the lawyer asked Blair. “Were any of your cabinet colleagues included on the Van Weenen list?”*

      >*“A clever question,” Blair responded. “I’m not going to say anything that would tend to identify any individual on that list, because it would be quite improper.”*

      >*This week, it emerged that 13 days after Astravas received the warrant, she sought a briefing from CSIS about a list of individuals potentially impacted by its proposed wiretaps targeting Chan, a former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister.*

      >*Blair’s former deputy minister, Rob Stewart, said he’d never encountered such a request before in his Public Safety Canada duties. Blair maintains that Astravas kept the Chan warrant from him, and he had no knowledge of its explosive contents until receiving the document in May—testimony that Commission lawyers have sought to undermine.*

      >*Astravas and several of Prime Minister Trudeau’s senior aides worked alongside Chan—a key fundraiser for the party in Toronto—in Ontario’s Liberal government.*

      >*The heart of the matter, judging by repeated questions from Commission lawyers, is that the Van Weenen list could have included both elected and unelected Liberal Party members. CSIS investigators suspected that Chan had attempted to influence Trudeau’s office regarding the replacement of a Liberal MP with another candidate in the 2019 election, which was the most consequential argument for the intrusive warrant, according to confidential sources cited in The Bureau’s* [*exclusive report* ](https://www.thebureau.news/p/warrant-delayed-by-minister-blairs)*on Monday.*

    25. OrionTO on

      Are these the most inept Ministers in existence? First Melanie Joly saying she wasn’t briefed about foreign interference then Bill Blair. They are leaders of their ministries. If they are not getting information they need from bureaucrats then they need to DEMAND it.

      You can tell they were just sitting on their ass waiting for briefings as opposed to taking any initiative. Useless.

    26. AustralisBorealis64 on

      Is “I didn’t know” going to be the Liberal Ministers’ first line of defense?

      OK. Fine. You didn’t know. You didn’t know, but someone in your department did know. Someone in your department should have been coming into your office, or writing e-mails, or strongly worded letters and letting YOU know.

      It’s one of the more important jobs of government to protect the interests of Canada and Canadians. Your department, your caucus, your party DID NOT DO THEIR JOB. You can not just disassociate yourself from this with a “Sargent Schultz” defense.

    27. marston82 on

      He probably has a silent agreement with his aides to withhold damaging information to protect him.

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