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Mounties Should Probe Criminal Obstruction in Bill Blair’s Office Warrant Delay, Says Former Senior CSIS and RCMP Officer

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In August 2015, then-federal Liberal candidate Bill Blair (back center, tallest) joined Liberal Party officials, including candidate John McCallum and then-Ontario Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and International Trade Michael Chan, at a ‘Team Trudeau’ federal election fundraiser in Greater Toronto Area. Source: John McCallum/Facebook.

By Sam Cooper

54 days created a big window for them to realize who was on this list, whose communications might be captured, and to go into damage control mode: Alan Treddenick, CSIS Veteran

Testimony from senior ministers and aides in Justin Trudeau’s administration at the Hogue Commission—marked by contradictions and conspicuous lapses in memory—has sparked calls for a criminal obstruction investigation into the months-long delay of a warrant targeting Michael Chan, a prominent Liberal Party fundraiser. Alan Treddenick, a former senior officer in Canadian police and intelligence services with extensive experience in domestic and international operations, warns the delay raises critical questions: Were party officials connected to the explosive warrant tipped off, as Public Safety Minister Bill Blair’s staff weighed its political fallout ahead of the Liberal Party’s election campaign?

The inquiry revealed that Blair and his top aide were briefed by CSIS around March 2021 on the pending warrant for Michael Chan. The document, which outlined a list of individuals potentially in communication with Chan, remained in Blair’s office for at least 54 days before it was approved. The prolonged delay constrained CSIS’s ability to act, leaving only about two months before the September 2021 federal election.

“The 54 days created a big window of opportunity for them to realize who was on this list, whose communications might be captured, and to go into damage control mode,” Treddenick said in an interview. “In my opinion, that would have meant quietly advising people on the list to be cautious about communications with certain individuals.”

Another expert, Duff Conacher, an ethics and transparency activist, calls the case involving Bill Blair and his chief of staff, Zita Astravas, perhaps the most serious conflict of interest matter he has ever seen in Ottawa.

“Both Blair and Astravas should have recused themselves,” Conacher said in an interview. “If a warrant targets someone affiliated with the politician’s party, there’s a clear risk of a cover-up, delay, or actions that protect the warrant’s subject.”

Emphasizing the stakes of the delay, a national security source—who cannot be identified due to ongoing leak investigations by the RCMP and CSIS—told The Bureau that CSIS officers had allegedly sought to plant surveillance devices inside a mansion Michael Chan was completing in Markham.

According to the source, CSIS officers were pushing to secure a national security warrant for Chan to allow such measures, but delays in 2021 left them frustrated. They noted that the opportunity to covertly install recorders inside Chan’s home during its construction had already passed.

In his testimony Chan acknowledged fundraising and campaigning for over 40 federal and provincial candidates, including prominent Liberal leaders such as Justin Trudeau, Paul Martin, Michael Ignatieff, Sheila Copps and John McCallum. He has vehemently denied any involvement in Chinese election interference and has publicly called himself a victim of CSIS investigations and media leaks.

Blair and Astravas strongly rejected allegations of inappropriate handling of the warrant during their testimony. Conservative MP Michael Chong’s lawyer, Gib van Ert, pressed Astravas, suggesting, “The warrant involved high-ranking members of your party and people you had known for years—isn’t that why you wanted to delay it?”

“That is false. Minister Blair has approved every warrant put before him,” Astravas replied.

Van Ert countered, “But he didn’t get it for 54 days, because of you.”

“Your accusation is false,” Astravas retorted.

The Bureau asked Treddenick for his assessment of the explosive evidence, focusing on the unprecedented delay in warrant approval and the testimony highlighting Blair’s chief of staff’s pointed interest in the so-called Van Weenen list.

This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

An image from a 2016 Globe and Mail profile on key players in PM Trudeau’s office, with points of interest for this story annotated in red lines by The Bureau.

Alan Treddenick:

“Let me start by saying I’m astonished that others in the media haven’t picked up or devoted any time to this issue. It made a bit of a splash during the commission, but then it seemed to disappear.

From Bill Blair to his chief of staff, to Katie Telford, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, even the Prime Minister’s testimony. There were memory lapses, confusion about responsibility, decision-making, and who had access to the document. This is unprecedented in my 32 years with the RCMP and CSIS—it’s unprecedented for a warrant application to sit in the minister’s office for 54 days. That’s one point.

Two, the Van Weenen lists aren’t new. They started within criminal jurisprudence and were adopted into National Security and CSIS Act warrant applications to give justices a broader picture of who might be captured in a target’s interception.

In this case, the 54-day delay is concerning—one, because as I said, it’s unprecedented; two, because of the number of people who would have had access to this in the minister’s office; and three, because during that 54-day period, that document didn’t just sit in somebody’s basket.

Typically, warrant applications with Van Weenen lists go through without issue. But this one raised questions, and Blair’s history as a Toronto police officer doesn’t suggest he would have been involved in stalling it. I put this down to his chief of staff—who is not incompetent; she’s a very savvy political operative, close to Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford, from their Ontario Liberal Party days. So my concern in this whole thing is that the 54 days allowed a big window of opportunity for them once they realized who was on this list—whose communications could be captured when communicating with the target. And the damage control mode, in my opinion, would’ve been quiet conversations somehow with people that are on the Van Weenen list. To say be careful when you’re talking or communicating with so-and-so, because you never know who’s listening.

Images from YouTube videos show Michael Chan attending campaign events and a fundraising dinner with Justin Trudeau and John McCallum.

The Van Weenen list was mentioned briefly in the Commission hearings, but I haven’t seen anyone really delve into it. When the Commission releases its final report, will it be part of the classified reporting? I don’t know. Have they asked people on the list to testify? I don’t know. It definitely needs some sort of review.”

The Bureau:

Based on my understanding, high-level sources informed me from the start that this investigation related to CSIS’s belief that the warrant’s target could influence the Prime Minister’s Office regarding the replacement of a sitting MP. My sources say this could be the most concerning counterintelligence threat for CSIS at that time due to the potential influence on the Prime Minister and his staff from a key party fundraiser to fix an important riding seat. Could you comment on that?

Alan Treddenick:

“If that’s accurate, it certainly would’ve been included in the affidavit to justify the powers for CSIS to further the investigation. I don’t know the specifics, and I haven’t seen the affidavit, nor do I want to, but from what you’re telling me, it’s plausible that all of that would’ve been in the affidavit.”

An image from a Globe and Mail profile on key players in Trudeau’s office, with points of interest for this story annotated in red lines by The Bureau. 

The Bureau:

Lawyers seemed to focus on the Van Weenen list and the chief of staff’s unprecedented interest in it. This points to concerns that people on the list could have been quietly alerted to be cautious, doesn’t it?

Alan Treddenick:

“Exactly. That 54 days provided an unprecedented window. Why would it have taken that long? Blair’s chief of staff is no dummy—she’s savvy and has likely seen other applications with Van Weenen lists that didn’t raise issues. This one took 54 days before Blair signed it. So what happened in that time? I suspect there was damage control behind the scenes.”

The Bureau:

What would you say to the layperson who sees this as potential obstruction? Even The Globe and Mail wrote that time was passing with an election approaching in September 2021.

Alan Treddenick:

“Regardless of the election, the 54-day period needs examination from a criminal point of view: obstruction, breach of trust, and possibly infractions of the Security of Information Act. From a criminal perspective, that’s one aspect—but from an intelligence perspective, the last thing we as an intelligence service would have wanted was for the people on the Van Weenen list to be advised that Target X is under surveillance. If they were warned to ‘be careful with your communications,’ it would likely result in a change in behavior, which could compromise our operations.

That’s why it’s very troubling to me that the 54-day window hasn’t been examined. Start with a criminal investigation: conduct interviews with everyone on the Van Weenen list and anyone who had access to the document from the moment it entered the minister’s office. Obtain judicial production orders for all communications to and from the minister’s office and staff, and track where they went. Look for any connections to individuals on the Van Weenen list—I suspect there will be, especially since the list likely included some prominent individuals.

If there was communication between someone on the list and the minister’s office, or a staff member, shortly after the chief of staff raised concerns about the Van Weenen list, that would raise a red flag. I’d then dig deeper into the nature of that communication. Did the communication or behavior of one person toward another change? If it did, it would suggest that someone on the list was warned.”

An image from a Globe and Mail profile on key players in Trudeau’s office, with points of interest for this story annotated in red lines by The Bureau. 

The Bureau:

You mentioned production orders. Should those apply here to track communications behind the scenes?

Alan Treddenick:

“Absolutely. Production orders for all electronic communications to and from the minister’s office are essential. I’d focus on links between those communications and people on the Van Weenen list.”

The Bureau:

I have said this seems like a Watergate-type inquiry. Would you agree that the level of investigative diligence here should be that high?

Alan Treddenick:

“Yes. Given the lapses in memory and conflicting testimonies—differences in how testimony from Marco Mendicino (Blair’s successor) treated applications versus Blair’s office—there should be a criminal investigation into this period.”

The Bureau:

Any final thoughts?

Alan Treddenick:

“I think your reporting and that of a few others has been essential. It’s unfortunate that leaks were necessary to expose this—but they were. In the inquiry, I saw bureaucratic machinery in its best—or actually worst—form.”

Editor’s note: Alan Treddenick, former senior counter-terror officer for CSIS, also worked for Blackberry on national security matters after retiring.

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An image from a Globe and Mail profile on key players in Trudeau’s office, with points of interest for this story annotated in red lines by The Bureau.

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Energy

China undermining American energy independence, report says

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From The Center Square

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The Chinese Communist Party is exploiting the left’s green energy movement to hurt American energy independence, according to a new report from State Armor.

Michael Lucci, founder and CEO of State Armor, says the report shows how Energy Foundation China funds green energy initiatives that make America more reliant on China, especially on technology with known vulnerabilities.

“Our report exposes how Energy Foundation China functions not as an independent nonprofit, but as a vehicle advancing the strategic interests of the Chinese Communist Party by funding U.S. green energy initiatives to shift American supply chains toward Beijing and undermine our energy security,” Lucci said in a statement before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee’s hearing on Wednesday titled “Enter the Dragon – China and the Left’s Lawfare Against American Energy Dominance.”

Lucci said the group’s operations represent a textbook example of Chinese influence in America.

“This is a very good example of how the Chinese Communist Party operates influence operations within the United States. I would actually describe it as a perfect case study from their perspective,” he told The Center Square in a phone interview. “They’re using American money to leverage American policy changes that make the American energy grid dependent upon China.”

Lucci said one of the most concerning findings is that China-backed technology entering the U.S. power grid includes components with “undisclosed back doors” – posing a direct threat to the power grid.

“These are not actually green tech technologies. They’re red technologies,” he said. “We are finding – and this is open-source news reporting – they have undisclosed back doors in them. They’re described in a Reuters article as rogue communication devices… another way to describe that is kill switches.”

Lucci said China exploits American political divisions on energy policy to insert these technologies under the guise of environmental progress.

“Yes, and it’s very crafty,” he said. “We are not addressing the fact that these green technologies are red. Technologies controlled by the Communist Party of China should be out of the question.”

Although Lucci sees a future for carbon-free energy sources in the United States – particularly nuclear and solar energy – he doesn’t think the country should use technology from a foreign adversary to do it.

“It cannot be Chinese solar inverters that are reported in Reuters six weeks ago as having undisclosed back doors,” he said. “It cannot be Chinese batteries going into the grid … that allow them to sabotage our grid.”

Lucci said energy is a national security issue, and the United States is in a far better position to achieve energy independence than China.

“We are luckily endowed with energy independence if we choose to have it. China is not endowed with that luxury,” he said. “They’re poor in natural resources. We’re very well endowed – one of the best – with natural resources for energy production.”

He said that’s why China continues to build coal plants – and some of that coal comes from Australia – while pushing the United States to use solar energy.

“It’s very foolish of us to just make ourselves dependent on their technologies that we don’t need, and which are coming with embedded back doors that give them actual control over our energy grid,” he said.

Lucci says lawmakers at both the state and federal levels need to respond to this threat quickly.

“The executive branch should look at whether Energy Foundation China is operating as an unregistered foreign agent,” he said. “State attorneys general should be looking at these back doors that are going into our power grid – undisclosed back doors. That’s consumer fraud. That’s a deceptive trade practice.”

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Business

While China Hacks Canada, B.C. Sends Them a Billion-Dollar Ship Building Contract

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The Opposition with Dan Knight

This is like finding out your house was broken into and, instead of calling the cops, you hire the burglar to remodel your kitchen because he offered a good price.

As federal agencies confirm Chinese state-linked cyberattacks on Canadian infrastructure, questions mount over B.C.’s decision to outsource shipbuilding to a state-owned firm in Beijing.

Just days—days—after British Columbia Premier David Eby shrugs off federal concerns over awarding a billion-dollar ferry contract to China, and I’m quoting here, tells Ottawa to “honestly, just mind your own business”… we learn that China is hacking Canadian telecommunications infrastructure.

Let that sink in.

So here’s the story. British Columbia, a province of Canada that still pretends to care about sovereignty and jobs—just handed a massive, publicly funded ferry contract to China. Yes, China. Not a B.C. shipyard. Not a Canadian company. But a Chinese Communist Party–owned industrial complex. Because apparently, in the year 2025, a G7 nation that once built warships and railroads can’t even build a ferry. The country that designed the Avro Arrow now outsources its boatbuilding to Beijing.

Why? According to BC Ferries, the Chinese bid was the “strongest” and “most cost-effective.” Translation: they were the cheapest totalitarian regime available.

And to justify that? We’re told Canadian shipyards didn’t even bid. Why? Because they don’t have the “capacity.” Which sounds an awful lot like: we’ve let this industry rot for decades and now we’re pretending it’s just the market doing its thing.

Now, Premier Eby didn’t deny it. He didn’t fight it. He didn’t try to fix it. He just said, “It’s not ideal. But it’s too late.” Five years of procurement, so we’re locked in. No turning back. As if surrender is somehow a neutral policy.

And Chrystia Freeland? She called it “dismaying,” which is Canadian for we’re not going to do a thing about it. No federal funding, she said, and please make sure it’s cybersecure. From a Chinese state firm. Sure.

Meanwhile, here’s the part no one wants to say out loud: China is actively attacking Canada’s digital infrastructure. This isn’t some distant cyber operation. It’s happening now. Salt Typhoon, a Chinese state-linked group, exploited a Cisco vulnerability to compromise three core telecom devices. They siphoned data. Created a GRE tunnel. Pulled configuration files. They were inside the system. Watching. Collecting. Spying.

And while that’s going on, B.C. writes them a check.

This is like finding out your house was broken into and, instead of calling the cops, you hire the burglar to remodel your kitchen because he offered a good price.

Now business analysts, the same people who said NAFTA would be great for everyone, argue this is “industry standard.” They point out Canadian firms have used Chinese shipyards for years. Yes—and look where that got us. No shipbuilding capacity, no strategic leverage, and no national pride.

BC Ferries insists it’s not a total sellout. They’re spending $230 million on local refits and maintenance. Great—so we send the billion overseas and toss the leftovers to local workers. That’s not industrial policy. That’s industrial hospice care.

Unions and domestic builders like Seaspan have said clearly: We can do the work. We want to build. But they need policy. They need backing. And instead of standing up and saying, “Let’s build ships in Canada again,” David Eby shrugs and signs the dotted line.

And what does B.C. Premier David Eby say when the federal government dares to ask a reasonable question—like, “Hey, is sending a billion-dollar infrastructure deal to a Chinese state-owned company while China’s hacking your telecoms and stealing your IP a smart move?”

Eby’s response?

“Honestly, just mind your own business.”

That’s not spin. That’s what he said—on the record, during a Jas Johal radio interview. He told Ottawa, Chrystia Freeland, and every single Canadian taxpayer footing the bill: Stop asking questions. Don’t expect accountability. Just sit quietly and watch us outsource the building blocks of our own sovereignty to an authoritarian regime.

Eby then admits—almost casually—that the deal is “not ideal.” Right. Because funneling public funds to a hostile regime that’s openly undermining your democracy and infiltrating your critical infrastructure isn’t ideal. But he claims the decision can’t be reversed. Why? Because it would cost too much, and we don’t have the capacity to build our own ferries anymore.

Let that sink in. This isn’t Somalia. This is Canada. A G7 country. And the Premier of one of its most important provinces is now saying: We’re too broken to build ferries, so let the CCP do it.

While B.C. writes checks to a Chinese Communist Party–controlled shipyard to build vessels for public service, Chinese state-sponsored hackers are already inside Canadian networks—pulling data, monitoring traffic, and spying on political officials. These aren’t amateur criminals. These are agents of a foreign authoritarian regime. And they’re not looking for cat videos. They’re not trying to intercept your hockey stream. They’re looking for call metadata, SMS content, real-time location tracking, and political communications. You know, espionage.

This isn’t some speculative post from a blog or a heated Reddit thread. This is straight from a government-issued cyber intelligence bulletin, published on June 19, 2025, by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Canada’s frontline cyber defense agency, in collaboration with the FBI. The bulletin confirms that a sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored threat actor, known as Salt Typhoon, orchestrated a targeted cyberattack in mid-February 2025, exploiting vulnerabilities in Cisco’s IOS XE software to infiltrate critical telecommunications infrastructure in Canada.

Specifically, Salt Typhoon zeroed in on a critical flaw, CVE-2023-20198, which allowed them to gain unauthorized access to three network devices registered to a major Canadian telecom provider. For those unfamiliar, this vulnerability is a remote code execution flaw that grants attackers admin-level privileges—essentially handing them the keys to the network. Once inside, they didn’t just poke around. They retrieved sensitive configuration files, which are like the blueprints of a network’s operations, and modified at least one to establish Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) tunnels. If you’re not a techie, GRE tunnels are a clever technique to create virtual pathways that bypass standard security controls, allowing attackers to quietly siphon off network traffic—think of it as tapping a phone line, but for entire data streams.

This wasn’t a smash-and-grab job. The bulletin details how Salt Typhoon’s actions were methodical, aimed at enabling long-term surveillance and data collection. By rerouting traffic through these GRE tunnels, they could access bulk customer data, including call metadata, location information, and potentially even the content of SMS messages or other communications. The targets? High-value individuals, such as government officials and political figures, whose data could fuel China’s broader espionage objectives. The bulletin warns that this is part of a global campaign, with similar attacks hitting telecoms in the U.S. and dozens of other countries, compromising providers like AT&T and Verizon.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security doesn’t mince words: Salt Typhoon is “almost certainly” backed by the People’s Republic of China, and their campaign is expected to persist, targeting Canadian organizations, especially telecoms and their clients, for the near and present future.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. Or infuriating.

Let’s look at CSIS’s own public report, released in 2024. Salt Typhoon isn’t named, no. But China is named. Over and over. Page 6 reads like a war warning that no one in Ottawa even bothered to read. It says, and I quote, “The People’s Republic of China continues to engage in sophisticated espionage and foreign interference… especially in critical mineral sectors and technology supply chains.”

Translation? They’re not just watching your data—they’re coming for your economy, your elections, and your sovereignty. This is more than cybercrime. This is geopolitical warfare. And China is winning because we’re too weak or too afraid to say no.

The CSIS report goes on: Chinese actors are infiltrating elections, immigration channels, even using AI and front groups to manipulate discourse and policy. Not someday. Now. Right now.

Let’s be completely clear: In February, China penetrated Canadian telecom infrastructure.

In June, we paid them to build ships.

How is that not a national scandal?

How do you allow that?

This is the collapse of common sense in real time. National security is not a partisan issue. It’s not theoretical. It’s not about trade. It’s about who holds the keys to your data, your infrastructure, and your future.

And right now, Canada’s government—and yes, its provinces—are not just letting that fall into China’s hands. They’re delivering it.

On a silver ferry.

Let that sink in.

Now ask yourself—what exactly are we getting in return? Where’s the national benefit? Where’s the plan? Where’s the damn spine?

David Eby says “BC First” like it means something. But how does it square with shipping public contracts straight to Beijing while China’s hacking your telecoms and eyeing your elections? You can’t call it “BC First” when you’re literally bankrolling Chinese state-owned industry while Canadian shipyards rot on the sidelines. That’s not leadership. That’s surrender.

And here’s the kicker—Eby’s been in multiple meetings with the feds. Four major First Ministers’ meetings, plus two sit-downs with Mark Carney, the man Liberals are touting as their next economic messiah. And you’re telling me not one person at those tables could put two brain cells together and say:

“Hey Mark, B.C. needs ferries. You want a manufacturing revival. Let’s cut a deal. You give us federal subsidies, we build these ships here at home. Yeah, it costs more up front, but it proves we’re serious about national industry. And we’re not handing vital infrastructure contracts to the same regime that’s compromising our telecoms and undermining our democracy.”

Would that not be common sense? Apparently not—because neither Carney nor Eby made that deal. They let it slide. They let the CCP win a contract while Salt Typhoon was actively hacking Canada’s backbone.

That’s not “hard choices.” That’s strategic failure. It’s cowardice masked as pragmatism.

Eby isn’t a dealmaker. He’s a decline manager. He’s the guy who shrugs and says, “Well, we can’t do it here,” and then signs a billion-dollar check to a foreign power with no accountability, no dignity, no leverage.

And Carney? The guy trying to pitch himself as the future of Canada’s economic revival? The guy who says we need to build, invest, strengthen? He let this go. Either he didn’t care, or he wasn’t paying attention. Either way—it’s incompetence at the highest level. And it proves the Liberals and the B.C. NDP are fully aligned in managing decline, not reversing it.

They told us Donald Trump was the threat. They told us he would sell out our values, undermine democracy, and abandon national interests. David Eby said it. Mark Carney echoed it. They told you they were the adults in the room—the ones who would put Canada first.

And what did they actually do?

They handed a billion-dollar public contract to a Chinese state-owned shipyard—while China is actively hacking our telecom networks and undermining our elections. They outsourced jobs, security, and dignity to the same regime their own intelligence agencies are warning us about.

David Eby said “BC First.” Mark Carney talks about reviving Canadian industry. But when the opportunity came—when they could have drawn a line, invested in our workforce, and told Beijing “no”—they caved. They chose cheap. They chose weak. They chose decline.

This is not leadership.
It’s not “strategic.”
It’s not “pragmatic.”
It’s pathetic.

And if this is what the NDP and Liberal vision looks like—deals for China, excuses for inaction, and silence while Canadian industry is gutted—then it’s time for an election.

We need real leadership. We need people who will fight for Canadian workers, Canadian infrastructure, and Canadian sovereignty. Not performative speeches. Not hollow slogans. Results. Accountability. Courage. This government has failed. Let the people decide. Call an election—before we lose more than just jobs and we can let someone lead who actually wants to make Canada First.

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