The Ethics Committee’s Ethical Quandry

Brian Mulroney has sent his stooges to Ottawa to tell the Commons ethics committee that he’d rather not face any more questions into his shady dealings with Karheinz Schreiber. That’s entirely understandable from his perspective. He’s spun so many tales that he’s cornered and, for BMPM, it can only get worse.

The committee could subpoena Mulroney to attend and even have him brought before them forcibly if he resists. Now wouldn’t that be a sight. But it seems the committee doesn’t have the appetite for subpoenaing a former prime minister, even one of Mulroney’s shabby stature.

I think the committee should just put the Mulroney issue on hold – for now. There are several other witnesses who should be called to testify including one Robert Hladun, Schreiber’s former lawyer. It was Hladun who basically confirmed author William Kaplan’s hunch that it was Schreiber who leaked the RCMP letter that led to the National Spot article that served as the launching pad for Mulroney’s lawsuit against the federal government. I’d like to hear that from his own mouth.

Then there’s the phone calls – two of them – Hladun supposedly received; one from Mulroney’s lawyer, the other from the lawyer and Mulroney himself. Schreiber’s narrative has these calls being placed to Hladun to get a letter or an affidavit from Schreiber claiming that no monies had ever changed hands between Schreiber and Mulroney. This was back when CBC’s Fifth Estate revealed it had copies of Schreiber’s Swiss bank records and – here’s the kicker – before Mulroney’s “voluntary disclosure” to Revenue Canada.

If Hladun corroborates Schreiber’s account of these calls, it’s over for Mulroney, he’s suborned perjury, and that goes directly to his credibility when he gave a grossly misleading answer about his dealings with Schreiber in his sworn evidence in the lawsuit itself. Cheque please, Mr. Mulroney – and don’t forget the interest.

The committee may not have the spine for a showdown with Brian Mulroney but there’s no excuse for not getting Hladun’s sworn evidence on these points.

 

Since When Does a Prime Minister Lobby for a Lobbyist?

Karlheinz Schreiber may be a sideshow in the financial affairs of Brian Mulroney. It was always thought that Schreiber received the $20-million in Schmiergelder, or grease (bribe) money, paid out by Airbus Industries in the course of the Air Canada deal. Schreiber says that money went, instead, to GCI (Government Consultants International), a lobby firm owned by Mulroney croney, the late Frank Moores.

GCI is gone and Frank Moores is dead so getting to the bottom of this is going to be more difficult than it otherwise might. That said, the records of Air Canada and its board during the Mulroney years do exist and might shed a lot of light on what happened.

Why did Mulroney sack some 15-Air Canada directors and why did he include among the replacements he appointed Frank Moores? Why did Frank Moores hurriedly resign this directorship? Why did Moores repeatedly deny claims that he and GCI acted for Airbus on the sale (although correspondence has emerged plainly showing just that)? Why did Moores run off in lockstep with Mulroney to make his own “voluntary disclosure” to Revenue Canada when Schreiber’s Swiss bank records became public?

One thing, however, stands out. It’s been reported that Mulroney repeatedly pressured the Air Canada board to pay GCI a $5-million fee of some sort related to the Airbus purchase. Did Mulroney, while prime minister, really lobby for the lobbyist and, if so, why and what did he get out of it? Why would Air Canada pay a fee to GCI if it was acting as lobbyist for Airbus? Did any money pass from Air Canada to GCI or Frank Moores and, if so, how much and for what?

Norman Spector did ponder what the Commons ethics committee might have learned had it held the current enquiry back in 2002 while Moores was still alive. It’s too bad he was never asked to expand on that thought.

 

Coyne Stirs Up the Ashes

Stephen Harper has a mentor, a guy named Brian Mulroney. It’s no secret they talk regularly, sometimes daily. Mulroney still dreams of the day his greatness will be acknowledged by a grateful and repentent Canadian people. Dreams.

In today’s NatPo, columnist Andrew Coyne writes of Stevie Cameron’s latest troubles and also raises a few loose ends Mulroney needs to clean up:

So Ms. Cameron’s reputation is shot. What of Mr. Mulroney’s? If his long-time antagonist has been discredited, does that mean he has been vindicated? Not a bit. It was partly as a result of those same Eurocopter hearings that evidence came to light of Mr. Mulroney’s dealings, shortly after he had stepped down as prime minister, with Mr. Schreiber — namely, that he had accepted a total $300,000 from Mr. Schreiber, in cash, in a series of hotel-room meetings.
That Mr. Mulroney had taken money, after leaving office, from the very man he was accused of taking bribes from while in office, in the Airbus affair, was a shocking revelation — particularly so, since Mr. Mulroney had stated, under oath, in his famous 1995 libel suit against the government of Canada, that he “had never had any dealings” with Mr. Schreiber, short of meeting him once or twice for coffee. Whether Mr. Mulroney deliberately misled the court is an open question, but it is a certainty that the government of Canada, had it known of the Schreiber payments, would never have agreed to settle with him, or to pay him $2-million in compensation.

Mr. Mulroney does not deny — now — that he took Mr. Schreiber’s cash. And he insists that the money was declared, and taxes paid. But he has an obligation– to the public, to the office he once held, to his own reputation — to explain himself further, including what he did for the money, and when he declared it.

Unfortunately for Mr. Mulroney there’s even a tape of his sworn deposition so we can all hear his sonorous voice unequivocally stating, under oath, that he had no dealings with Schreiber. It was on the strength of that forceful denial from a former prime minister that the Chretien goverment folded and handed Big Brian two million dollars of our money.

The other facts surrounding this story, unearthed by CBC’s Fifth Estate, are even less flattering for Muldoon. He and Frank Moores got their money but neither declared it on their tax returns. Huh, why not? Only after the dealings were unearthed did Mulroney and Moores made “voluntary disclosures” to Revenue Canada and pay up their back taxes.

Yes, Mulroney should be returning that two million, with interest and the government’s costs in the form of a nice cheque he can put straight into the hand of his new pal, Stephen Harper. He should also give this country and all Canadians a full apology. He owes us that.