The federal government says in its final submission to the Foreign Interference Commission that no political interference led to the delay of a surveillance warrant on an Ontario politician, while other participants say there is no other possible explanation. “The glaring discrepancy between the delay in authorizing the politically-damaging Chan warrant and two other contemporaneous warrants – taking 4 days and 8 days respectively – demonstrates how far from the ordinary course the Chan warrant process was,” they wrote. The subject of the warrant was not discussed in the most recent phase of public hearings, but during the previous phase in the spring, Blair did not dispute that it related to Ontario politician Michael Chan.
The warrant application was delayed between Blair’s chief of staff at the time, Zita Astravas, and its landing on Blair’s desk in a timely fashion. Lawyers for the Conservative Party said it is the commission’s duty to solve the “mystery,” while adding that the answer “should be obvious.” “Upon receipt of the warrant application – including the Vanweenan list – Ms.
Astravas realized that a number of high-ranking Liberals were going to be surveilled by CSIS, and realized that the information that would emerge from this surveillance was likely to be highly damaging to the Liberals,” they wrote. The Vanweenan list refers to an annex to a warrant application that contains the names of individuals whose conversations might be inte.
