W Five Nails Mulroney

Nov 06, 2007 04:30 AM
Bruce Campion-Smith
Ottawa Bureau Chief


OTTAWA–Federal government lawyers likely would not have recommended a $2 million payout to Brian Mulroney had they known about his financial dealings with Karlheinz Schreiber, says Eddie Goldenberg, Jean Chrétien's former top adviser.

"Knowing then what we know now, I would doubt that the department of justice would have recommended a settlement and frankly I would doubt that the government of the day, the minister of justice of the day, would have agreed to that recommendation," he said in an interview.

Chrétien was the prime minister who signed off on the cash settlement with Mulroney in January 1997.

Mulroney, prime minister from 1984 until 1993, had sued the federal government after the justice department named him in a letter alleging his involvement in a kickback scheme for Air Canada's purchase of Airbus jetliners in 1988.

At the time of the settlement, the government was under the impression that Mulroney had had only limited dealings with Schreiber, the alleged architect of the scheme.

In a transcript of an examination for discovery held in 1996, Mulroney was asked a question about Schreiber and replied, "I had never had any dealings with him."

But it was later revealed that the former prime minister had received $300,000 from Schreiber. He says he had sought Mulroney's help launching a chain of pasta restaurants and on behalf of a German-based company that wanted to set up an armament plant in Quebec.

But Goldenberg, who was Chrétien's senior policy adviser at the time, suggested the prime minister was in the dark about the extent of Mulroney's dealings with Schreiber, a fact he says that might have changed the government's willingness to offer a settlement.

Last week, the CBC's fifth estate and The Globe and Mail reported that Mulroney delayed paying taxes on the $300,000 he got from Schreiber.
"I further doubt that the government would have agreed if those facts were on the record at the time," Goldenberg said in an interview yesterday.
"The very fact that he had had monetary dealings with Mr. Schreiber. ...
"He had at least let it be believed that he didn't have any monetary dealings with him," Goldenberg said.

Instead, he said that Chrétien accepted the recommendation of the justice department to settle with Mulroney.

"At the time, the department of justice recommended to the minister of justice and attorney general that they settle for whatever reasons," Goldenberg said.

"It was very much a recommendation from the department of justice to the minister of justice. ... He accepted that recommendation and he made that recommendation and the prime minister accepted it right away. There wasn't much debate."

But Mulroney spokesperson Luc Lavoie says the $300,000 paid by Schreiber has become a red herring and had nothing to do with the Airbus affair.

Instead, it was meant as payment for Mulroney's help with business ventures.
"This retainer was paid after Mr. Mulroney left office and was in no way connected with the Airbus transaction," Lavoie said yesterday in an email.
And he said when the RCMP finally closed their investigation into the Airbus affair in 2003 and cleared Mulroney of any wrongdoing, "they had known for a full two years about the $300,000 retainer," Lavoie said.

Chrétien himself says he was relieved when the government settled out of court, saying it spared Mulroney, the police and "the reputation of all our public institutions and officials."

But then he admits his own surprise at news of the payments received by the former prime minister.

"Of course, I was as mystified as every other Canadian when Mulroney later admitted to having received $300,000 in cash payments from Schreiber after leaving office," Chrétien writes in his new book titled My Years as Prime Minister.

"However, as I told my officials, the only proper thing to do was to accept the word of a former prime minister of Canada," he said.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has rebuffed opposition demands for an inquiry, but it's not likely to dampen calls for an accounting of Mulroney's business dealings with Schreiber.

Thanks for posting this Unf, this should be good news but if Harper gets the majority he wants, I'm afraid this whole thing will be buried under so much BS that it won't ever see the light of day again.

Mulroney is scum.....I would be much happier if he had absolutely NO connection with anyone in the CPC.

I joined the Reform Party WAY back when largely because of Lyin' Brian.

But Brian has ALREADY been investigated to the nth degree.........it is unlikely that any illegality can be proven at this late date.....an inquiry would be a waste of time and money because I have NO doubt the sleazy bastard was up to something...........but he has simply gotten away with it.....live with it.

And yes, part of Harper's hesitation is undubtedly an attempt to protect the Party, if not Mulroney himself....

But as for giving him a majority, better someone that protects Lyin'Brian that a Party that protects terror groups such as the Tamil Tigers....

And that is what it comes down to....pick the least offensive party..... (sigh)

So much for accountability eh?

It would be beneficial I think to have the voters boost both the NDP and the Green Party to provide a balance of alternatives in the House. Then it wouldn't be so either or every election.

The Libs had 13 years to deal with this... to investigate it properly.... they botched it AND paid that scumbag $2 Million to boot!

Harper is buddies with Mulroney.... it is now too late to do a damn thing.... years of corruption (Mulroney years) followed by years of incompetence AND corruption (Cretin) followed by ???? time will tell.... so far it isn't looking good.

When will Canada wake up? A pox on all your houses whoever votes for either corrupt party. The sooner BC leaves this banana republic, the better.

The Libs had skeletons in their closets too. Chretien hotel and golf courses for Quebec and the Gun Control fiasco come quickly to mind. A little revenge hit would have Liberal rats scurrying the other way in a well-travelled gutter.

Get the wealthy OUT of office for they do NOT represent a majority....

Woof!

Mulroney did swear under oath that he never had any dealings with Schreiber. That was obviously a lie and that puts every thing the chin says under suspicion. Harper should be aware that this crap can rub off on anyone who gets too close.

Something's weird here.......I'm in aggreement with everything that's been posted so far

Good point, Juan.

The SOB could be charged with perjury, one would suspect.........but that would be up to the Justice Dep't WITHOUT political interference, and they say the case is closed...

Damn, Lyin' Brian convicted of Lyin' would be just TOO sweet!

He was paid off by his peers.shrieber is in jail here for chrissakes and has a semi gag around his mouth.

People look at these things and see sworn enemies .Chretien against Mulroney, yeah right.I'm starting to believe it's a whole other world with unwritten laws that they just protect one another in the club.

None of them have anything ever happen to them, no matter what they are invovled in.

what was that traitor's name ...Rene Levesque..yeah..did he not have a state funeral? .i mean this is a guy that devised a party for the one purpose only,the breaking up the country. They all showed up to his funeral like he was one of them.....All gave beautiful speeches of the great guy.....

were voting for some good ole boy's network where they pad their purses and shout about the other guy's when found out .....but do nothing....

I absolutely agree Colpy!

But we won't hold Chretien accountable for the taxpayer paving the road to his cottage and many other instances of Canadian politicians fleecing the average Joe....it's not the "Canadian-Way" of doing things. We'd rather celebrate the fact that our administration doesn't support the Tigers or find bullshyte excuses for taking our nation to war.....

I think we're better off, but the accountability factor that's missing in Canadian politics is a smudge on any criticism leveled at any other government by a Canadian willing to give the likes of Mulroney a pass...

Ripping off the Gov't is what stories like this make me want to do....didn't they name a town after Mulrooney? Yup, they did, it's called Moose Jaw!

LOL.

For the first time in 30 years Mulrooney is silent.

The little reported Harper Press response in Halifax was most annoying. Harper's reponse about setting up an inquiry was tantamount to a blackmail attempt. The thrust of the response was something like, "do you want me to delve into past Liberal shady practices also? The Liberals should carefully consider their request."

I must admit that I would be interested in how much cash was dispensed by Sheilla Copps,(Heritage Minister) when she was flying around with blank cheques in her carpet bag dispensing to all and sundry.

Durgan.

Hang them all for treason. Or coral anyone tainted by these monetary scandals to receive a kick in the @ss from every single person who walks by the public square where they hold the public flogging.

Mulroney first sent a letter to Schreiber asking him to deny that any payments were made then a second asking him to state the $300,000 was a retainer. Mulroney received over $2 million from Canadian taxpayers based on his testimony that he had no business dealings with Schreiber. Clearly that's a lie and he should be forced to return the money with interest and also charged with perjury if that's appropriate.

A federal inquiry is also needed to find out where the rest of the $20 million Airbus bribery account went in the late 1980s when Air Canada ended up purchasing over 100 airliners from the company.

If anything I think it shows both how dirty Mulroney was and is, and just how much like the Liberals Harper's Conservatives are. Everyone is scamming the public these days. Who the hell do you look to for some honesty and accountability?

Politics has always been dirty and Karlheinz Schreiber has been convicted of bribing a number of European politicians of the 1980s-90s, including the former Chancellor of Germany so this isn't just a Canadian issue.

You're right about Harper, the only thing he learned from the Liberals when he was in opposition was how to take advantages of the flaws in our system to gain more power. At the rate we're going we'll have our own Robert Mugabe in charge of the country before too long.

Hey CK, there are a number of things I don't like about Harper, but comparing him to Mugabe is WAYYYYYY over the top......and when compared to the opposition.....well, he da man.

I marched in the streets 2.5 decades ago to keep Mullpricky out of the trough (pig feeding device) an was called down to the lowest for not feeling the pride of community at electing a thief and a liar. It was too late then to save this country and it's later still, all that's left is the war at the end of capitalism.

I marched in the streets 2.5 decades ago to keep Mullpricky out of the trough (pig feeding device) and was called down to the lowest for not feeling the pride of community at electing a thief and a liar. It was too late then to save this country and it's later still, all that's left is the war at the end of capitalism.

Isn't that a little like comparing Hitler with Stalin? I mean who ever you choose it's not going to be the cream of the crop.

I didn't compare Harper to Mugabe, that's where your mind automatically went...interesting.

What I'm saying is the trend in Canada and most other "democracies" is towards less and less accountability making the kind of excesses going on in Zimbabwe inevitable in a world with dwindling natural resources, large populations, an ultra-wealthy elite set on protecting their way of life and a rapidly changing global climate.

You say you were originally Reform, what the hell happened to changing the way Ottawa works to make it more accountable. From what I see of the governement in power now they have even less respect for the voters than any previous government. All they seem interesested in is boosting numbers high enough to get their majority government at which point we'll discover their true agenda after it's too late to stop it.

Harper man be your man, but he's not an answer to the real issues we're facing in the world today. I bet he's been bought and paid for by the oil lobby and despite what you claim that's probably where a lot of the conservative warchest comes from. Dion is being attacked indirectly by Big Oil through Harper. Elections Canada is investigating campaign donations to the conservatives in the last election right now.

So there (necessary to get posted.)

Harper isn't taking us to the middle of the road, he's trashing the way our democracy functions in an attempt to remove any accountability the same way Cheney has in the US.

Killing democracy to save it makes no sense to me. I'm all for cleaning house and removing special interests from all sides so that voters do really get what they're promised during elections. I would have been more supporting of Harper if he hadn't immediately started playing the same political games of the past and at a level not seen before. He lost me when he reversed the vote of the people in Vancouver-Kingsway days after the election and appointed Emerson to cabinet just to gain a little more power. We don't need a PM that wants to rule us, we need a PM that wants to give our Parliment back to the people, not make our votes meaningless.

I understand what you are saying but, unfortunately, politics increasingly becomes a game of tactics and strategy, and if you want to win, you have to play......what's the solution? I wish I knew.

Every party at every time in our history has allowed people to cross the floor. Many, many years ago it required a by-election, which makes perfect sense to me......

Politics are that way because we allow our politicians to make them that way. Harper could have taken the nation in a different direction, but he chose the path of least resistance and we're once again saddled with a government that doesn't want to be honest with us and is only really concerned with getting and holding power.

I'm not against MPs crossing the floor for serious political/ideological differences with their leader or party, but Emerson never even sat in the House after the election. If he wanted to be a conservative MP he should have ran as one, it was borderline election fraud. He and Harper sat down behind closed doors before the ink on the ballots was even dry and decided what was best for them and said to hell with the will of the voters.

Haepwr is setting up a inquiry into the" Mulrooney Affair".

I must say truly this was not expected. I have disliked the mob from the West starting with Bible thumper Manning, then Day, then Harper.

Now I am beginning to take notice of this Harper fellow. Implementing the inquiry is the first event of the CPC that I truly applaud. If Harper opens the party up so that he is not the only spokesman, and quits preaching on morality issues I just might even vote for the CPC- not yet though. Harper's stance on Afghanistan still needs major modifications. Haiti has been forgotten. I could go on but will stop here.

A little off topic. Dion is babbling about poverty in Canada. Yet the Liberals has 13 years to address this issue, and there are still 300,000 children somewhat dependent upon food banks. Why?

Durgan.

Nov 10, 2007 04:30 AM
bruce campion-smith
tonda maccharles
tracey tyler

OTTAWA–After seeing his name appear in a court document, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called for an independent review of the relationship between former prime minister Brian Mulroney and a German-Canadian businessman.

Karlheinz Schreiber is suing Mulroney for $300,000, money he says was paid in cash between August 1993 and December 1994 to the former prime minister.
Schreiber, who faces extradition to Germany as early as next week on tax evasion, fraud and bribery charges, alleges Mulroney failed to make good on promises to help with some business ventures.

None of the allegations has been proven in court.

In an affidavit filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Schreiber refers to a letter he sent Mulroney on July 20, 2006, at Mulroney's request. Schreiber claims Mulroney wanted the letter because he wanted to show it to Harper, to prove "he (Mulroney) and I were on good terms."

In a hastily called news conference, Harper yesterday said he was "surprised to learn that my own name was mentioned" in the court document, but stressed he is not calling for the review for that reason.

"We can't ignore the allegation," Harper said yesterday. "We always have to protect the office of the prime minister."

Harper suggested a review was necessary because of new allegations in the 12-page affidavit filed in court this week:

Schreiber's claim that Mulroney struck a business deal with him while still in office in the summer of 1993 that resulted in the $300,000 in cash payments later paid to the former prime minister.

Schreiber's claim that Mulroney's former aide, Fred Doucet, had asked Schreiber at some unspecified date to "transfer funds from GCI (a government lobbying firm) to Mr. Mulroney's lawyer in Geneva related to the Airbus deal."
Still, Harper had resisted calls from the opposition for an independent inquiry into the Mulroney/Schreiber relationship until yesterday, when he admitted that after the independent review by an impartial person, there could possibly be a public inquiry.

Harper said he might name a person to do the review as early as next week.
It appears Harper was particularly concerned by the fact Schreiber also publicly linked him personally to the affair.

In the July 20, 2006 letter Schreiber sent to Mulroney he said "over the past three months I have learned a lot about the monster that had dogged our footsteps since 1994. Without a doubt, this is the biggest political justice scandal in Canadian history." Schreiber said others are responsible for the scandal and he and Mulroney are the "innocent victims of this vendetta and you are still the prime target."

It was that letter than Schreiber alleges that Mulroney wanted to bring to the meeting with Harper at Harrington Lake in July, 2006.

Harper yesterday denied any July 2006 meeting ever occurred, but he said his family had welcomed Mulroney and his wife to Harrington Lake in August 2006.
"We did not talk about the relationship between Mr, Mulroney and Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Mulroney did not give me any letter," said Harper.
"This series of incidents, this affair has been the subject of all kinds of rumours and innuendo over the years. For that reason it's impossible, frankly, for the government to make an impartial judgment on how to proceed," Harper told reporters.

Harper said Schreiber's allegations, made under oath, for the first time directly touched on Mulroney's time in office as well as the validity of the $2.1 million settlement the government of Canada reached with Mulroney.
"I acknowledge the appointment of an independent and impartial third party to review the allegations. I will co-operate fully with the person appointed," Mulroney said in a written statement.

"Since the new allegation under oath does touch upon Mr. Mulroney's term in office, I think it gives rise to something we have to respond to," Harper said.
"I'm not sure how. I'm quite convinced that this government should not make that decision. That's why we've got to find somebody impartial to give us advice on how we should respond."

Harper said the review could lead to a full-fledged inquiry into the Airbus affair and even force Mulroney to repay the $2.1 million settlement he got from the federal government in an out-of-court libel settlement in 1997.
He cautioned it was "very, very premature" to prejudge the outcome but conceded he wants to know whether the new allegations "have any bearing on the settlement." Mulroney, prime minister from 1984 until 1993, successfully sued the federal government after the justice department named him in a letter alleging his involvement in a kickback scheme for Air Canada's purchase of Airbus jetliners in 1988.

A senior Harper official said later that former prime minister Jean Chrétien will be asked to make available his own government's cabinet discussions about the Airbus affair and the settlement, documents that are usually sealed for more than 20 years.

At his news conference yesterday, Harper urged Canadians to keep the allegations "in context."

"I don't have anything other than these allegations and the allegations do stem from, let's say, a nasty litigation between Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Schreiber."
Harper, who has used Mulroney as a mentor in the past, said he did not talk to the former prime minister in advance of his announcement yesterday.

Now, he has ordered his cabinet members to keep their distance as well.
"I think it will incumbent upon myself and members of the government not to have dealings with Mr. Mulroney until this issue is resolved," Harper said.
Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion suggested Harper's call for a review is little more than a delaying tactic.

"Now that Mr. Schreiber's affidavit has been made public – now that it names Prime Minister Harper himself as an alleged actor in some of the events in question – Mr. Harper seems desperate to look like he is taking action, while actually offering nothing but delay," Dion said yesterday.

The CBC and The Globe and Mail reported last week that Mulroney eventually paid income taxes on the $300,000 cash payments, but not in the years the money was received.

The second allegation is that Schreiber met with Mulroney, again at the former prime minister's request, around Feb. 2, 1998 at a hotel in Zurich, Switzerland.

This was more than a year after the Canadian government apologized to Mulroney for naming him in a letter to Swiss authorities seeking information in an Airbus corruption investigation.

Schreiber says Mulroney's former speechwriter, Paul Therrien, who also wrote speeches for Harper and is now chief of staff to one of Harper's cabinet ministers, escorted him up to Mulroney's room.

At the meeting, Schreiber claims he informed Mulroney about "the earlier request made by Mr. Fred Doucet to transfer funds from GCI to Mr. Mulroney's lawyer in Geneva related to the Airbus deal."

Schreiber does not specify when exactly Doucet made such a request – one that would have undoubtedly influenced the outcome of any negotiations with Mulroney in the Airbus settlement.

At the same meeting, Schreiber says he again explored with Mulroney what other business they could do, including Mulroney's support for a planned pasta business – services Schreiber says Mulroney never rendered.

Schreiber potentially faces removal from Canada as early as Thursday if his latest appeal at the Ontario Court of Appeal fails, but already, lawyer Edward Greenspan says his instructions are to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada if that occurs.

Greenspan would not comment on Harper's move.

"There's no question that Mr. Schreiber believes that politics are playing a very important part in the case. But as a lawyer I'm dealing with an extradition request from Germany for him to return to Germany to stand trial on a number of charges."