Brian Mulroney Media Room

Ottawa’s Star Chamber

 Email To Friend |  Print |29/02/08

When public figures offended powerful interests under Henry VIII, they would be summoned to appear in a large committee room. With no charge or indictment, no right to counsel, no right to cross-examine accusers and no right to appeal, they would be judged in secret by a panel of political opponents. Conviction was guaranteed.

The Canadian parliamentary Star Chamber is a milder, more modern tribunal: It operates in the open, it cannot sentence its victims to death and its judgments can be appealed. Still, the behaviour of the Commons ethics committee presents decidedly frightening parallels to the Tudor era: no right to counsel, no right to see evidence before it is made public, no right to examine witnesses and the judge and jury are one’s political enemies.

Read the complete article here.

Quotable - 28 February 2008

 Email To Friend |  Print |28/02/08

“This has been like a 15-year jihad against Mulroney and his family by his enemies — led by Mr. Schreiber and enabled by some in the media.”

“It’s time to bring this to a close. There really is no case left to answer.”

“Having extended his checkout time from ‘Hotel Canada’ by three months courtesy of the ethics committee, [Schreiber] wants an extra year or two to extend his late checkout further courtesy of the taxpayers who will foot the bill for a public inquiry without having put one iota of evidence on the table.”

“We have neither facts nor public monies involved. It was only a private transaction between Messrs. Schreiber and Mulroney, with which Mr. Schreiber was satisfied for almost 15 years until he brought his lawsuit in Ontario – which was thrown out.”

“It’s time to put an end to 15 years of a futile search to damage Mr. Mulroney’s reputation.”

“Mr. Mulroney candidly acknowledged his error of judgment and apologized to the Canadian people without reservation. What’s the point of a commission of inquiry in those circumstances, except to extend Mr. Schreiber’s stay among us?”

“Is it really in the public interest to appoint a costly public commission of inquiry in order to give Mr. Schreiber yet another chance to extend his stay in Canada? The only reasonable and fair answer to that question is ‘No.’ ”

“No purpose would be served except to seek to embarrass him. But that cannot possibly be a legitimate use of the Inquiries Act.”

Letter from Guy Pratte to Paul Szabo

 Email To Friend |  Print |27/02/08

February 27, 2008

BY E-MAIL AND BY FAX
(Original by courier)

Mr. Paul Szabo, M.P., Chair
c/o Mr. Richard Rumas, Clerk
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ACCESS TO INFORMATION,
PRIVACY AND ETHICS
Room 6-18
131 Queen Street
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6

Re: Request for the Second Appearance of The Right Honourable Brian Mulroney

Sir :

I - INTRODUCTION:

Three months ago the Ethics Committee, under your Chairmanship, adopted a resolution (of questionable legality) stating “that in order to examine whether there were violations of ethical and code of conduct standards by any office holder, the … Committee…review matters relating to the Mulroney Airbus settlement, including any and all new evidence, testimony and information not available at the time of the settlement and including allegations relating to the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney made by Karlheinz Schreiber…”.

Now that the Committee has heard from all the witnesses it has chosen to call (12 of them) and obtained thousands of pages of documents, it is absolutely clear that there is no case for former Prime Minister Mulroney to answer. Indeed, despite my written requests for it to do so, your committee has failed to indicate any applicable law or ethical standards Mr. Mulroney might have violated, either while he was Prime Minister or in the 15 years since leaving office and resuming private life. Notwithstanding Parliament’s extraordinary powers to compel the attendance of any person and obtain all relevant documents, not one iota of credible evidence has been presented in those three months of public hearings implicating Mr. Mulroney in any illegal or unethical conduct.

This conclusion is a proven fact, not wishful rhetoric. It is supported by all the evidence you have heard, as will be amply demonstrated by a detailed analysis of the evidence I shall forward to you presently. Allow me to state the inescapable conclusions any impartial observer must come to and then summarize the reasons supporting them:

1. There is no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Mulroney was involved in any illegal or improper conduct regarding the Airbus matter while in public office or thereafter. This was confirmed not only by the RCMP in 2003, but also by Prof. Johnston in his report to the Prime Minister, dated January 9, 2008;

2. There is no credible evidence whatsoever that the private transaction Mr. Mulroney entered into with Mr. Schreiber on August 27, 1993, violated any contemporaneous law or ethical standard. The only “evidence” to the contrary is the testimony of Mr. Schreiber, unsupported by any documentation or any other witness heard by the Committee. Yet, his own testimony in this regard is contradicted by (a) the testimony he himself gave under oath in 2004, whose truth he confirmed in March 2007 in another legal proceeding and (b) some of the testimony he himself provided to your committee.

3. Although Mr. Mulroney had no valid reason at the time to doubt Mr. Schreiber’s integrity and, despite the fact that no breaches of law or ethical standards have been identified by the Ethics Committee or anyone else, Mr. Mulroney apologized to the Canadian people for the error of judgment he made in agreeing to deal in cash with him upon re-entering private life;

4. Not only have no legal or ethical violations been identified, but the Ethics Committee has failed to unearth any evidence that would justify a costly public inquiry into those matters.
 

II - NO VIOLATIONS OF ANY LAW OR APPLICABLE ETHICAL STANDARD

a) The Airbus affair: no evidence or reason to set aside the settlement:
In 1997, the Government of Canada entered into a full and final settlement with Mr. Mulroney in which it apologized unconditionally for the defamatory statements contained in its widely distributed letter to the Swiss authorities. The Settlement Agreement stated, in part:

“2. The basis for the litigation was the Request for Assistance, indicated and drafted by the RCMP and signed and sent by the Department of Justice to the Swiss authorities in the Airbus investigation by the RCMP.

3. Some of the language contained in the Request for Assistance indicates, wrongly, that the RCMP had reached conclusions that Mr. Mulroney had engaged in criminal activity.

4. Based on the evidence received to date, the RCMP acknowledges that any conclusions of wrongdoing by the former Prime Minister were and are unjustified.”

The Government of Canada agreed to repay $2.1 million for Mr. Mulroney’s legal or other consultants’ costs as determined by Former Québec Chief Justice Allan B. Gold. Not one cent of the settlement money was paid to Mr. Mulroney personally.

In 2003 the RCMP, after an exhaustive domestic and international investigation, advised Mr. Mulroney and the Government of Canada that there was no basis for laying any criminal charges in relation to the Canadian government’s 1995 allegations relating to Airbus and closed its investigation. In his report to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, dated January 9, 2008, Professor David Johnston confirmed, after discussions inter alia with the RCMP, that there was no basis for revisiting the Airbus matter.

The sole reason advanced to justify re-opening the settlement issue is not based on any evidence, but solely on the ex post facto speculation that the Government of Canada might not have settled on the same terms had it been cognizant in 1997 of the private business relationship that started in August 1993 between Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Mulroney. However, this hypothesis ignores the raison d’être of the settlement which is succinctly explained in paragraphs 2-4 quoted above, namely, that neither the Government of Canada nor the RCMP had any evidence to sustain or justify the conclusory allegations of wrongdoing by Mr. Mulroney contained in the 1995 Request for Assistance letter sent to the Swiss Authorities. Mr. Mulroney’s subsequent business dealings with Mr. Schreiber were and are totally irrelevant as there is no evidence whatsoever that they were related in any way to Airbus.

Secondly, and in any event, the Government of Canada has been aware since at least the publication, on November 10, 2003, of the Globe and Mail article by William Kaplan (and probably much earlier as a result of the RCMP’s investigation), of cash payments from Mr. Schreiber to Mr. Mulroney in the context of their private business relationship. Now, 5 years later, the Government of Canada has taken no legal steps whatsoever to challenge the settlement in the Québec courts. In fact, it is too late to do so under Québec law. It is inconceivable that the Government of Canada would not have acted to attempt to set aside the settlement, within the time limitations set by law, had it believed there was any reason to justify such action.

There is simply no new evidence or justification before your committee that would warrant any further inquiry into the Airbus settlement with Mr. Mulroney.

b) Mr. Mulroney’s business dealings did not violate any applicable legal or ethical rules:
Almost 15 years after he started paying Mr. Mulroney for his consulting services, Mr. Schreiber filed an action in Ontario and an Affidavit, dated November 7, 2007, in which he alleged that Mr. Mulroney had not performed the contracted services. Mr. Schreiber asked for repayment of some $447,000, made up of $300,000 in cash payments he allegedly made to Mr. Mulroney, plus interest. This lawsuit was dismissed by the Superior Court of Ontario on December 20, 2007. Mr. Schreiber chose not to appeal that court decision. It follows that Mr. Schreiber’s has no valid claim against Mr. Mulroney that can be pursued in Ontario.

The conclusion that Mr. Schreiber’s claim is without merit is also supported by the totality of the credible evidence given before your committee.

First, as to the timing of the transaction, Mr. Schreiber alleged it was made while Mr. Mulroney was still Prime Minister. This was contradicted by Mr. Schreiber’s unequivocal testimony under oath in the 2004 Eurocopter preliminary inquiry in which he stated that the business relationship with Mr. Mulroney did not start until after the latter had “stepped down” as Prime Minister of Canada. Moreover, he reiterated that 2004 testimony in an affidavit dated March 3rd 2007, filed in the Federal Court of Canada. Indeed, Mr. Mulroney has emphatically denied that any business transaction was discussed at Harrington Lake on June 23, 1993 and the Committee, aside from Mr. Schreiber’s self-contradictory evidence, neither heard nor received any evidence that contradicted Mr. Mulroney’s recollection of the events. Rather, the evidence from Mr. Fred Doucet, that Mr. Schreiber called him, in August 1993, to arrange a meeting with Mr. Mulroney later that month (it eventually took place on August 27, 1993) to discuss an international mandate, confirms Mr. Mulroney’s own evidence, before the Committee, as do the documents produced to the Committee last week. Clearly therefore, the business relationship with Mr. Schreiber was created on August 27, 1993, when Mr. Mulroney was no longer Prime Minister.

Secondly, as to the nature of the transaction, Mr. Schreiber alleged that the mandate for which he sought Mr. Mulroney’s services was to lobby the Conservative Government and Canadian officials to promote the construction of Light Armoured Vehicles (LAVs) in Canada. Again, that new allegation was contradicted by Mr. Schreiber’s 2004 testimony in the Eurocopter case and especially before the Committee itself when he denied categorically having hired Mr. Mulroney for the purpose of lobbying any Canadian officials. Further, the evidence that Mr. Mulroney was hired strictly for the purpose of promoting the Thyssen LAV’S abroad is confirmed by:

1. the testimony of Fred Doucet, both as to the reason stated to him by Mr. Schreiber for requesting a meeting with Mr. Mulroney, in August 1993, and with respect to the briefing Mr. Mulroney gave Mr. Schreiber on his international activities in New York City, on December 8, 1994;

2. the mandate drafted by Mr. Doucet and annotated by Mr. Schreiber in 2000 that confirmed the international nature of the mandate;

3. the fact that Mr. Schreiber continued to pay Mr. Mulroney well after the Conservative Government had been defeated in the October election of 1993 (indeed, two of the three payments occurred after that date);

4. the fact that not a single Canadian government official has been called to give any evidence of any attempts by Mr. Mulroney to influence the Canadian government in relation to Thyssen Bear Head project;

5. the testimony of Mr. Greg Alford of GCI, who was responsible for the Thyssen project in Canada and who confirmed that he had never heard of Mr. Mulroney being retained to lobby Canadian authorities on Thyssen’s behalf; and

6. the fact that this allegation was made by Mr. Schreiber for the first time in his November 7, 2007 affidavit in a transparent attempt to bolster his desperate attempts to avoid extradition.

Thirdly, concerning the amount of the cash payments made by Mr. Schreiber to Mr. Mulroney, Mr. Schreiber alleges that these totalled $300,000, whereas Mr. Mulroney stated to the Committee that they amounted to $225,000 (Mr. Mulroney had previously indicated, in the November 10, 2003 Globe and Mail article written by William Kaplan, that he disputed the exact amounts claimed by Mr. Schreiber). In this regard, apart from the fact that Mr. Schreiber’s reliability with respect to any aspect of his testimony, is more than suspect, this difference as to the precise amount paid is as irrelevant to the mandate of the Committee as is the question of whether Mr. Mulroney was paid appropriately for the services he performed for Mr. Schreiber: it was entirely a private business matter between them.

Further, Mr. Schreiber was obviously completely satisfied with Mr. Mulroney’s services for almost 15 years, and sent him complimentary letters during that time. It was only in 2007 that he claimed his money back in the Ontario Superior Court. Since then, his claim has been dismissed. Clearly, therefore, there is no basis whatsoever to inquire further as to the adequacy of Mr. Mulroney’s international consultancy services provided to Mr. Schreiber.

Finally, as to the form of the payments chosen by Mr. Schreiber, namely cash, there was absolutely nothing illegal in Mr. Mulroney accepting legal tender for his services. No one has identified any law or applicable ethical rule that would have prohibited Mr. Mulroney from accepting cash from Mr. Schreiber, at the time, in the context of their private professional relationship. Therefore, the form of payment he accepted in 1993-1994 does not constitute a breach of any law or of the applicable Code of Conduct by Mr. Mulroney.

It follows that no evidence has been heard or document received by the Committee that suggests, let alone demonstrates, that Mr. Mulroney breached any law or violated any applicable ethical standard in connection with the private business dealings he entered into with Mr. Schreiber as he returned to private life.

III - MR. MULRONEY APOLOGIZED FOR HIS ERROR OF JUDGMENT IN ACCEPTING PAYMENT IN CASH FROM MR. SCHREIBER

Even though it is beyond dispute that Mr. Mulroney has violated no applicable law or ethical standard, Mr. Mulroney acknowledged that, in retrospect, he made an error of judgment when he agreed to accept cash from Mr. Schreiber in August 1993. At that time, as Mr. Mulroney explained in his testimony before the Committee on December 13, 2007, he sincerely believed that Mr. Schreiber was a reputable businessman. Still, Mr. Mulroney has accepted, without reservation, the responsibility for having left himself open to criticism by agreeing to deal in cash with Mr. Schreiber and has apologized for his error of judgment.

Mr. Mulroney has also been criticized for not acknowledging earlier, publicly and directly, the nature and extent of these private dealings with Mr. Schreiber. Those criticisms, while perhaps understandable, miss the fundamental point that Mr. Mulroney’s business relationship with Mr. Schreiber was (a) private, (b) legal and (c) in compliance with the 1985 Code of Conduct provisions applicable to him. Therefore, there was no legal or other obligation to discuss these matters in public, any more than the private business affairs of other former Prime Ministers have to be disclosed publicly.

Now that Mr. Schreiber has apparently succeeded in enticing some members of the Ethics Committee to assist him in his efforts to avoid extradition by manufacturing false accusations and making himself indispensable as the raison d’être of the Committee’s inquiry or of a subsequent public inquiry, it is easy to criticize Mr. Mulroney for his reticence. Some might claim this unfortunate parliamentary exercise could have been avoided had Mr. Mulroney decided earlier to open his private business affairs to the public. However, the unfair and very partisan way in which the Committee’s hearings have been conducted suggests this is but wishful speculation.

In any event, Mr. Mulroney has now explained the facts surrounding his business relationship with Mr. Schreiber and apologized to the Canadian people, although he has done nothing illegal or unethical. What else can be demanded or expected of him?

IV- THERE IS NO NEED FOR FURTHER COSTLY PUBLIC INQUIRY INTO THE AIRBUS MATTER OR MR. MULRONEY’S DEALINGS WITH KARLHEINZ SCHREIBER:

In the fall of 2007, when Mr. Schreiber’s November 7, 2007 affidavit was made public by the media with great fanfare, it became evident that there would be renewed calls for a full public inquiry into the Airbus settlement and Mr. Mulroney’s business dealings with Mr. Schreiber. Mr. Mulroney decided the he would welcome such an inquiry, assuming that this was the only way to clear his name and prove that he had done nothing illegal nor violated any ethical rules.

In making this assumption, he did not anticipate the decision of the Ethics Committee to conduct its own inquiry into the same matters that the public inquiry was intended to consider. This was understandable, since the opposition parties had repeatedly asked for a public inquiry, not for the Ethics Committee to use its vast powers to conduct the inquiry itself. Yet, the Ethics Committee, claiming that it feared that Mr. Schreiber might be extradited before a public inquiry could be set up, surprised most observers, including Mr. Mulroney, by launching its own inquiry.

As summarized above and, despite the unfairness it demonstrated toward Mr. Mulroney (instances of which were brought to your attention in my earlier correspondence with you), it has now become clear that no violation of law or contemporaneous ethical rules have been proven or even suggested. Aside from Mr. Schreiber’s own contradictory evidence, the totality of the relevant testimony and documentation supports Mr. Mulroney’s account before the Committee. Mr. Schreiber having completely failed to establish even a prima facie case of wrongdoing on Mr. Mulroney’s part, despite five appearances before the Ethics Committee and the thousands of pages of documents he filed, is it really in the public interest to appoint a costly public Commission of inquiry in order to give Mr. Schreiber yet another chance to extend his stay in Canada? The only reasonable and fair answer to that question is “No”.

Indeed, in his fifth appearance before the Committee, Mr. Schreiber added nothing useful to what he had previously said and demonstrated to an obviously exasperated Committee that he was still playing the same game of buying time in Canada by pretending to have something dramatic to reveal. Only this time, he was promising such revelations not to the Committee (to which he had already made the same unkept promise several times) but to a future public inquiry. At the end of his testimony, Mr. Schreiber was asked directly and clearly whether he had any additional evidence of any wrongdoing to bring before the Committee. Instead of responding to this very pertinent and important question, Mr. Schreiber evaded it by talking about Mr. Pelossi.

Mr. Schreiber has simply continued his successful strategy of avoiding extradition by bluffing the Committee and the Canadian people into believing he has genuine evidence to bring forward when in fact he has nothing of the kind. In the circumstances, there is nothing for Mr. Mulroney to refute.

Moreover, as Mr. Mulroney has admitted and apologized for his error of judgment in agreeing to transact business with Mr. Schreiber in the way he did, what would be the point of forcing him to do so again in a public inquiry? No purpose would be served except to seek to embarrass him. But that cannot possibly be a legitimate use of the Inquiries Act.

In the end, the only justification for further consideration of these matters, whether by the Ethics Committee or another body chosen by the Government upon receipt of Mr. Johnston’s follow-up report, involves the question of whether the Code of Conduct applicable to former high office holders should be revised so as to enhance Canadians’ confidence in their elected representatives. Perhaps, to that extent, some good could come out of this extremely painful saga for Mr. Mulroney and his family.

V - CONCLUSION:

For those above reasons, Mr. Mulroney sees no need to re-attend before the Ethics Committee and therefore respectfully declines your offer to do so on February 28, 2008.

However, given the special responsibility of the Ethics Committee to ensure that any report it makes to Parliament does not unfairly damage the reputation of any Canadian citizen, I request that you provide me with a copy of any draft report that the Committee might prepare, so as to afford Mr. Mulroney a reasonable opportunity to provide comments before it is communicated to the House of Commons. Basic fairness requires no less, given that the damage already done to Mr. Mulroney’s reputation could be unjustifiably exacerbated by this report.

Yours truly,

BORDEN LADNER GERVAIS LLP

Guy J. Pratte
/mv

C.C.: Committee members: (by e-mail only)

A Reply to Mr. Szabo

 Email To Friend |  Print |26/02/08

Guy Pratte today wrote to the House of Commons Ethics Committee Clerk declining Paul Szabo’s request for Mr. Mulroney to appear on Thursday, February 28, 2008.

A detailed response will be sent to Mr. Szabo on Wednesday, February 27, 2008.

Mr. Pratte and Robin Sears will be available for media inquires on Thursday, February 28, 2008 at the National Press Theatre, 10am EST.

SIX ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS THAT SCHREIBER MUST ANSWER

 Email To Friend |  Print |25/02/08

QUESTION #1

For more than 15 years Karlheinz Schreiber has played games with investigators and journalists, has attempted to make a fool of the Canadian justice system and has most recently perjured himself before the House of Commons Ethics Committee. It is a style and a routine of which he is proud and has often bragged. For example, he told a reporter from Der Stern, the German news magazine, quoted in “The Last Amigo:”

“I feel like a cat sitting on a cage full of mice, and I don’t know which one to eat next.”

Key to his endless game of hide and seek with journalists and the justice system has been Mr. Schreiber’s claim to possess mountains of damning evidence related to each of his improbable allegations. But when challenged, his evidence is never revealed.

In the same cocky vein, on the eve of his appearance before the Commons Ethics Committee, in an interview with “As it Happens,” on the CBC, on November 2, 2007, Schreiber said, “I have documents and very important information placed at safe places so if something would really happen to me, then it would all be disclosed.”

In his first four appearances before the committee despite direct requests from several committee members to produce the evidence he had so often bragged about, Schreiber continued to duck and refused to deliver.

Therefore, the first essential question that Mr. Schreiber must be made to answer is:

“What are the names of the Canadian politicians, bureaucrats, or corporate officials in Canada you claimed to have made payments to, in what amounts and when?”

QUESTION #2

The origin of Mr. Schreiber’s current campaign of vilification against Mr. Mulroney and unnamed Canadian officials is, of course, his effort to avoid extradition to Germany to face eight criminal charges relating to his business activities. Among them are income tax evasion, defrauding the government of Germany and Saudi Arabia, defrauding his employer Thyssen Industrie, accepting and offering illegal commissions and rewards, in other words, bribes.

His arrest in Toronto in 1999 triggered his long battle to avoid being required to face these charges. Two of his former business associates have not been so fortunate. In 2007, Juergen Massman and Winfried Haastert were both convicted by German Federal Court. Their convictions were based in part on proof of their having received illegal payments from bank accounts controlled by Schreiber.

Yet Mr. Schreiber has offered both to the Commons Committee and to a Canadian court directly contradictory testimony about those accounts. In the Motion Record, a public document on his extradition proceedings (dated July 20, 2007), the court received a report of the German authorities on Mr. Schreiber’s banking records. On page 116 it declares that Mr. Schreiber “has economic control of assets to be brought in from account PO-18679,” in other words the IAL account.

Indeed, in the German court proceedings related to his fraud charge trial, the management of the Swiss Bank Corporation, where the account resides, testified that “the defendant, Karlheinz Schreiber is the owner of account 18679 and authorized his wife, Barbara Schreiber to operate this account. The authorization was signed by the defendant Schreiber…”

Schreiber’s former accountant, Georgio Pelossi in his testimony to the Commons Committee said, “When we had a falling out [Schreiber] told everybody it had nothing to do with IAL, it’s not his company, it’s somebody else’s company and such stories. This was the first time he began to lie. Now he’s lying every time he tells you something. His only goal is to stay in Canada and not be deported to Germany.”

However, in his December 6 testimony before the committee, Mr. Schreiber declared “I never transferred any money from IAL to another account because this is another lie [that] IAL belongs to Schreiber which is not true.”

So the question Mr. Schreiber must answer: “Is the Swiss Bank Corporation, the holder of accounts in question lying when they testify to a German court that Mr. Schreiber was the holder of the account and authorized his wife to operate it, or was he lying to the committee when he claimed it was not his?”

QUESTION #3

Mr. Schreiber has also been entrapped by his contradictions about the payments he claimed to have made from the accounts he denies he controlled. Edward Greenspan, Mr. Schreiber’s lawyer, wrote the CBC’s “Fifth Estate” protesting their intention to claim that one of the accounts under Mr. Schreiber’s control, the so-called ‘BRITAN’ account, was set up for the benefit of Mr. Mulroney.

Mr. Greenspan said that to make such an allegation would be “a false, inaccurate, malicious, groundless inference. There’s no resemblance to the truth in that reckless suggestion.”

However, in his testimony before the Ethics Committee on December 6, 2007, asked by the committee member, Dave Van Kesteren what the BRITAN account was, Schreiber answered “BRITAN stands for Brain Mulroney…” Further challenged about when he opened the account he said “it must have been a couple weeks after my meeting with Mr. Mulroney at Harrington Lake…”

Mr. Pelossi in his testimony before the committee also reported that Mr. Schreiber had claimed that there was another account set up for the benefit of Mr. Mulroney, the so-called “DEVON” account. When asked why Mr. Schreiber would have made that claim, he answered “the only reason, I think, is it was because I was entitled to 20% of the profit… if he pays 50% to somebody else, that is [his] cost.”

The question for Mr. Schreiber, therefore is: “Who is lying about the ‘BRITAN’ account, Mr. Schreiber to his own lawyer, Mr. Greenspan; Mr. Pelossi, his own accountant at the time; or Mr. Schreiber himself?”

QUESTION #4

Mr. Schreiber also has a tendency to claim meetings and relationships with individuals who deny any such contact. For example, in connection with the Airbus case, Mr. Schreiber claimed before the Commons Ethics Committee that “you may take it as fact that I met quite often with Claude Taylor [Chairman of Air Canada].” However, in the January 28, 2008 edition of Maclean’s they report him saying, “This is another myth. I never shook his hand. He has told people that he visited my office, but he never did.”

Similarly, Mr. Schreiber has maintained that he met with Mr. Mulroney at Harrington Lake for the purpose of engaging him as a representative of Thyssen Bear Head. He testified before the Ethics Committee in response to a question from Russ Hiebert about the agreement as follows:

Mr. Russ Hiebert:
You had an agreement. Okay. Can you tell us when you established that agreement?
Mr. Karlheinz Schreiber:
It was at Harrington Lake.

However, in his sworn testimony on November 24, 2004 in the Eurocopter case, Mr. Schreiber said in response to a question from the prosecutor that “I had many things in mind, and I told you, I wanted to hire Mr. Mulroney for Thyssen to be doing the same thing he was doing now, and it would have been a nice thing to have a previous Canadian Prime Minister on a peacekeeping track for Thyssen products.”

The prosecutor asked: “….What time are we talking about?”

Mr. Schreiber answered: “After Mr. Mulroney has left government.”

The prosecutor persisted: “After he had stepped down as Prime Minister?”

Mr. Schreiber answered, “Yes. Yeah.”

So the question for Mr. Schreiber is: “Did he lie to the court in the Eurocopter case about the Harrington Lake meeting, or did he lie to the Ethics Committee?”

QUESTION #5
In early May 2007, Mr. Schreiber was incarcerated pending a court decision on his extradition appeal. Having already been turned down twice in previous appeals, he sent a blackmail letter to Mr. Mulroney, threatening among other things to disclose that Mr. Mulroney “received payments from GCI, Frank Moores, Fred Doucet, Gary Oullet…that [Mr. Mulroney] asked [Mr. Schreiber] through [his] lawyers to commit perjury, and that [Mr. Mulroney] supported fraud related to the Thyssen project.” He added, “This is my last warning.”

Parallel to his provincial appeals, Mr. Schreiber commenced an action in the Federal Court of Canada to have his extradition order set aside. The Federal Court threw out his case on June 11, 2007, because it ruled that his appeal was a “last gasp attempt to prevent the enforcement of the Minister’s Surrender [extradition] Order.” Having little success in the courts, and increasingly desperate to avoid extradition, Mr. Schreiber turned to his friends in the Liberal party, the CBC, and the Globe and Mail to help him with his get-out-of-jail card.

Mr. Schreiber should answer these questions:

“When he was in custody, which members of the media and the Liberals did he meet with when he was in custody, and when he was released from custody?”

“Did he give them any documents, and what were the contents of these documents?”

“Did any of these meetings contribute to his false affidavit of November 7, 2007?”

QUESTION #6
Mr. Schreiber’s original allegations concerning Airbus have been repudiated by successive investigations by the RCMP and most recently by Prof. Johnston. Mr. Schreiber’s allegations concerning the Harrington Lake meeting are contradicted by his own testimony. Mr. Schreiber’s claims to have mountains of evidence concerning payments to Canadian politicians have remained that, simply unsubstantiated, undocumented claims.

Mr. Schreiber has fought extradition to his native Germany for nine years making trying to make a fool of the Canadian justice system and most recently the Canadian parliament and it’s Commons Ethics Committee.

In his last appearance before the Committee, Mr. Schreiber was asked directly by the Chair whether “To the best of your knowledge and belief you have brought to the attention of this committee, all material matters related to the motion before us.” In a classic Schreiber response, he asserted that, “Yes” he had brought all material matters to the committee, but then added, “I think I can add more.”

Mr. Schreiber will today appear, hopefully for the final time, his history and his behavior begs one overarching question:

“What evidence has he not had the opportunity to produce? Why has he refused despite the Committee’s persistent demand to make public the material that he said he had stored in ‘safe places?’ And if he fails to offer such evidence, in light of the repudiation of each and every one of his previous allegations, what conceivable justification is there for a costly public inquiry?”

______

For a more detailed set of questions, click here.

Pratte response to Szabo’s second appearance request

 Email To Friend |  Print |22/02/08

February 22, 2008

BY E-MAIL AND BY FAX
(Original by courier)

Mr. Paul Szabo, M.P., Chair
c/o Mr. Richard Rumas, Clerk
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ACCESS TO INFORMATION,
PRIVACY AND ETHICS
Room 6-18
131 Queen Street
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6

Re: Request for a Second Appearance of the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney before the Ethics Committee on February 28, 2008

Sir :

I acknowledge receipt of your letter of February 16, 2008, in which you requested confirmation of Mr. Mulroney’s appearance on Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 3:30 p.m., failing which the Ethics Committee might decide to issue a summons for his appearance.

I am puzzled by your threat as you have previously stated that the Committee would not force Mr. Mulroney to testify. Indeed, other members of your committee (such as Messrs. Thibault and Murphy) publicly stated that they would not seek a summons to compel my client’s testimony. Moreover, according to committee vice-chair, Mr. Pat Martin, you failed to consult with him or other committee members on this issue. In the February 20, 2008 edition of La Presse, Mr. Martin is quoted as saying:

“Le NPD détient la balance du pouvoir au comité, souligne le député de Winnipeg-Centre. Et nous avons décidé de ne pas appuyer un vote pour assigner M. Mulroney à comparaître de force ou pour l’obliger à nous remettre ses rapports d’impôt. ”

“Ce n’est pas parce que nous avons le pouvoir d’obliger l’ancien premier ministre à comparaître, poursuit M. Martin, que cela veut dire que nous devrions le faire. […]”

On CTV (February 19, 2008), Mr. Martin stated: “[…] That’s correct, unless [Mr. Mulroney] wants to come on the 28th to clarify something or to challenge other testimony we might have heard from witnesses. He’s welcome to. If he chooses not to, the committee will not have the NPD’s swing vote to force him to attend. And I believe that should conclude the work of the committee for the purposes of this study. I’d like to get on to other things like the access to information act which is the name of our committee.”

As is clear to all, Mr. Mulroney is the prime target of your inquiry. Before deciding whether to re-attend, Mr. Mulroney is entitled, as a matter of basic fairness, to know the specific allegations made against him and the specific provisions of the Parliament of Canada Act and/or of the Conflict of Interest and Post-Employment Code for Public Office Holders he is alleged to have violated. Yet, you have totally failed to provide Mr. Mulroney with this information. He is also entitled to know and consider all the evidence that has been put before your committee before deciding whether to re-attend. As Mr. Martin stated, it is up to Mr. Mulroney to decide whether it is necessary for him to re-attend in order “to clarify something or to challenge other testimony [the Ethics Committee] might have heard from witnesses.”

Obviously, a final decision on that score can only be made after the appearances of Messrs. Elmer MacKay and Karlheinz Schreiber scheduled on February 25, 2008. Thereafter, Mr. Mulroney will advise as to whether or not he will accept your invitation to attend on the 28th of February, 2008.

Yours truly,

BORDEN LADNER GERVAIS LLP

Guy J. Pratte
(Signed in his absence by Mtre Tommy Tremblay)
/mv

C.C.: Committee members: (by e-mail only)
Martin.Pat@parl.gc.ca (Pat Martin)
Tilson.D@parl.gc.ca (David Tilson)
Asselin.G@parl.gc.ca (Gérard Asselin)
Dhaliwal.S@parl.gc.ca (Sukh Dhaliwal)
Hubbard.C@parl.gc.ca (Charles Hubbard)
Pearson.G@parl.gc.ca (Glen Douglas Pearson)
Wallace.M@parl.gc.ca (Mike Wallace)
DelMastro.D@parl.gc.ca (Dean Del Mastro)
Hiebert.R@parl.gc.ca (Russ Hiebert)
Lavallee.C@parl.gc.ca (Carole Lavallée)
VanKesteren.D@parl.gc.ca (Dave Van Kesteren)

Pratte response to Szabo’s document request

 Email To Friend |  Print |22/02/08

February 22, 2008

BY E-MAIL AND BY FAX
(Original by courier)

Mr. Paul Szabo, M.P., Chair
c/o Mr. Richard Rumas, Clerk
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ACCESS TO INFORMATION,
PRIVACY AND ETHICS
Room 6-18
131 Queen Street
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6

Re: Additional documents and information requested from the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney

Sir :

I acknowledge receipt of your letter of February 16, 2008 requesting additional documents and information concerning the international mandate Mr. Schreiber gave Mr. Mulroney in August 1993, as described in the latter’s testimony of December 13, 2007.

I also acknowledge receipt on February 20, 2008 of a summons which is addressed to me personally. I assume that this is an error, as I cannot believe that your committee would seek to execute a summons on counsel for a witness that has appeared before it. That would be clearly abusive. In addition, I consider your threats as reported in the media this morning to be particularly inappropriate in light of the fact that the deadline you have yourself set to reply to your letter of February 16, 2008 has not yet expired.

Be that as it may, I respond as follows:

(1) Details of Mr. Mulroney’s international visits and meetings including notes of his reports to Mr. Karlheinz Schreiber.

First, as regards any relevant documentation, the only documents which Mr. Mulroney has in his possession are brochures concerning the light armoured vehicle (LAV) produced by Thyssen and copy of a fax attesting to the possible interest of foreign countries, e.g., the United States and the United Kingdom (copy attached). These were related to Mr. Schreiber’s idea of retaining Mr. Mulroney’s services for promoting internationally Thyssen LAV. Pursuant to the August 27, 1993 meeting, Mr. Mulroney decided that discussions with P-5 leaders to see if the UN would be interested in a LAV, which could be used in peacekeeping missions, could be a helpful way to begin this process, as he has testified.

[Click here for the first brochure]
[Click here for the second brochure]
[Click here for the fax]

Secondly, as to the details of his meetings with foreign leaders and governments, Mr. Mulroney has already responded to this request in his testimony on December 13, 2007 and through my letter to you dated January 29, 2008 (copy attached). Although no written reports were provided, Mr. Mulroney presented Mr. Schreiber with a detailed oral briefing when they met in New York on December 8, 1994, in the presence of Mr. Doucet (a fact which Mr. Doucet confirmed when he testified before the Ethics Committee recently).

[Click here for the letter to Szabo dated January 29, 2008]

Furthermore, I fail to see how the precise nature and extent of the work Mr. Mulroney did for Mr. Schreiber is of any relevance to the Ethics Committee or its mandate beyond the fact that it was of an international nature - a fact also confirmed by Mr. Doucet and Mr. Schreiber himself when he appeared on November 29, 2007 before the Ethics Committee. The issue of whether Mr. Mulroney performed adequately the work for which he was paid by Mr. Schreiber is an entirely private matter. Indeed Mr. Schreiber, for almost 15 years after he had first retained the services of Mr. Mulroney, had no complaint about the extent or quality of his services. To the contrary, on at least two occasions, Mr. Schreiber wrote Mr. Mulroney highly complimentary letters regarding his services and talents (copies of which have already been provided to the Ethics Committee). Then, in 2007, in a transparent attempt to enhance his chances of resisting extradition, he sued Mr. Mulroney alleging that no services had been performed. Mr. Schreiber’s suit was dismissed by the Superior Court of Ontario in December 2007 and no appeal was filed.

(2) A general summary of the disposition of the three payments of $75,000, and the discrepancy with the $100,000 payments as stated by Mr. Schreiber.

On this issue, Mr. Mulroney has nothing to add to the testimony he provided the Ethics Committee on December 13, 2007 and has no contemporaneous documents. Moreover, how he spent the money received is utterly irrelevant to any genuine issue before the Ethics Committee. While Mr. Mulroney voluntarily indicated during his testimony that he used some of the money to defray the legitimate expenses incurred in carrying out the international mandate, this is a matter that could only have been relevant in Mr. Schreiber’s now dismissed lawsuit. As for the funds received in the U.S., Mr. Mulroney stated in his testimony that he took them to a safety deposit box in New York (whose existence was separately confirmed to you by JPMorgan Chase Bank in a letter provided to the Ethics Committee – copy attached) and that none of the funds were taken back to Canada.

[Click here for the letter from JPMorgan Chase Bank]

Finally, I note again that any discrepancy on the amounts is totally irrelevant to the Ethics Committee’s mandate, and could only have been relevant in the context of Mr. Schreiber’s lawsuit against Mr. Mulroney which, as above stated, was dismissed. Indeed, I am astounded that your committee would not only waste time pursuing the issue of this “discrepancy”, but would give any weight to Mr. Schreiber’s assertions in this regard. Mr. Giorgio Pelossi, Mr. Schreiber’s former accountant and business partner, testifying at the Committee’s invitation, stated that Mr. Schreiber is “lying every time he tells you something. The only goal he has is to stay in Canada and not to be deported to Germany”. Mr. Pelossi’s assessment is supported not only by Mr. Schreiber’s own contradictory evidence to the Ethics Committee, but could not be better illustrated than by Mr. Schreiber’s changing versions of his contribution to Mr. Jean Charest’s leadership campaign: he told your committee the amount involved was $30,000. Then it was revealed he had told the authors of a book that the amount was $13,000. And finally Premier Charest’s brother, who had received the contribution, stated the amount involved was $10,000.

I trust this information is of assistance.

Yours truly,

BORDEN LADNER GERVAIS LLP

Guy J. Pratte
(Signed in his absence by Mtre Tommy Tremblay)
/mv
Encl.

C.C.: Committee members: (by e-mail only)
Martin.Pat@parl.gc.ca (Pat Martin)
Tilson.D@parl.gc.ca (David Tilson)
Asselin.G@parl.gc.ca (Gérard Asselin)
Dhaliwal.S@parl.gc.ca (Sukh Dhaliwal)
Hubbard.C@parl.gc.ca (Charles Hubbard)
Pearson.G@parl.gc.ca (Glen Douglas Pearson)
Wallace.M@parl.gc.ca (Mike Wallace)
DelMastro.D@parl.gc.ca (Dean Del Mastro)
Hiebert.R@parl.gc.ca (Russ Hiebert)
Lavallee.C@parl.gc.ca (Carole Lavallée)
VanKesteren.D@parl.gc.ca (Dave Van Kesteren)

Committee running out of steam

 Email To Friend |  Print |19/02/08

Heard Friday on Politics:

“The steam is running out of this thing.” Susan Delacourt, Toronto Star

“These guys were floundering and flailing and really grasping.” Rob Russo, CP

On CP:

After hearing from some witnesses with spotty memories and others who offered nothing new to the existing public record, both Liberals and New Democrats have joined the Conservative party line that it’s time to let a public inquiry take a crack at the tangled tale.

“It’s our opinion we should wrap it up now, hand it over to the public inquiry to see where they can take it,” NDP MP Pat Martin said Friday.

Liberal MP, Robert Thibault in CP:

Robert Thibault, said it may be preferable for the committee to wrap up its work and make way for the full-scale public inquiry promised by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

“That’s the way we’re going to get to the bottom of this thing,” said Thibault. “We can’t do it as a committee.”

MISS CAMERON’S NEVER-ENDING SCHREIBER SOAP

 Email To Friend |  Print |14/02/08

More than twenty years ago, a former Toronto journalist began publishing a tale that came to resemble a Victorian penny-dreadful novel or a modern Brazilian tele-roman soap opera. Collecting gossip from disgruntled Conservatives and political opponents, she assembled a series of colourful attacks on the government of the day. Frustrated by her ability to get others to take her tale seriously, she became a police informant, peddling her wares for more than two years to an increasingly skeptical RCMP.

Cameron ferociously denied being a police informant telling a Globe and Mail reporter it was “horseshit.”

She intervened in the Eurocopter trial to demand that her name not be disclosed as a confidential informant. In July of last year Justice Then, of the Ontario Superior Court, ruled that the RCMP “had acted in good faith in asserting confidential informant status on behalf of Ms. Cameron.” Cameron’s lawyer had argued that she was not a CI because she had granted permission for her status to be revealed “for the purpose of the prosecution of Brian Mulroney.”

[Read Then statement here]

Her colleagues were furious:

Edward Greenspon, Editor-in-chief, The Globe and Mail, February 28, 2004:

If she didn’t know she was an informant, how could that be? And if she did know, how much did the RCMP rely on a journalist in pursuing its investigation all these years?

Her denunciation by friends and colleagues, and a formal motion of censure by the Canadian Association of Journalists did not end her campaign. The crusade Cameron launched continues, with a pair of equally credulous journalists carrying her torch, in an ongoing crusade to blacken the name of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

Globe and Mail Editorial, February 26, 2004:

Just as important, if this was an investigation with a political motive, who directed the force to continue with its probe when it was apparent the case had no factual basis?
Andrew Phillips, Times Colonist, March 6, 2004:

Most sobering of all, this bizarre episode casts an even longer shadow over the entire Airbus affair – which cost taxpayers at least $6.4 million, including the $2 million the federal government paid to Mulroney after it admitted libelling him in its infamous letter to the Swiss in 1995. It now appears that letter was the product of a reporter and a police force who got way too cosy with each other.

Like flying saucer zealots, the creators of this campaign have never been deflected by truth or contradictory evidence, court findings, or the bemusement of their colleagues. If the damage to Mr. Mulroney were not so serious, it would only be one more case of media obsession, à la Britney Spears. As their ongoing efforts impugn the name of a former prime minister, the office that he held, and by extension the reputation of Canada, it is important to roll out, one more time, the most damning evidence that this tale is simply a tissue of lies.

CAJ denounces Cameron’s actions in passing information to police, Canada News Wire, March 10, 2004:

The Canadian Association of Journalists denounces the actions of investigative journalist Stevie Cameron for passing information to the RCMP in the Airbus investigation [...]

“Journalists must not be seen as proxy agents of the state, for that undermines the public’s trust in our profession, as well as our very ability to gather information”[click here to read statement]

Margaret Wente, The Globe and Mail, March 6, 2004:

I feel sorry for her. But I feel much worse for my profession. Ms. Cameron has done a world of harm. She has been complicit in one of the most contemptible, absurd, politicized prosecutions of all time. Although she and the Mounties never got their man, it scarcely matters. Thanks to them, many people I know believe the worst of him. And that includes far too many people in my business.

THE SOAP OPERA IS LAUNCHED

In 1987, in a column in the Globe and Mail, Ms. Cameron began publishing a series of ‘below stairs’ gossip items about the Mulroney family’s lifestyle. They were largely based on the testimony of unnamed unhappy Conservatives. By 1989, the items had become increasingly lurid, allegedly based on the testimony of the family’s former chef Francois Martin. (Sadly, it took almost twenty years for the chef to report that Ms.Cameron had taken great liberties with his commentary. He denounced her claims to the Commons Ethics committee on Feb.7, describing her efforts as “good prose.”)

In 1988 the RCMP received two curious anonymous allegation letters. The first was from a Canadian address; the second, passed on by a Boeing representative, based on an FBI memo, made curiously parallel allegations about corruption surrounding the sale of Airbus aircraft to Air Canada.

ANONYMOUS TIP LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION

The RCMP suspected that Ms. Cameron was the author of the anonymous Canadian letter, and investigated its source without success. The “American” letter, appeared to have been prepared by someone with similar knowledge and prejudices about the Conservative government. No one has ever been discovered as the author of the Canadian letter, or the source for the FBI despite years of investigation by the RCMP.

[Read RCMP speculation here]

Ms.Cameron began to collaborate with CBC’s ‘The Fifth Estate’ journalists Jock Ferguson and Harvey Cashore in this period, sharing leads and information. The CBC’s leading public affairs program got the ‘Schreiber bug’ badly. It has spent millions of taxpayer dollars, and sent camera crews travelling around the world. The CBC produced seven full length shows on the Schreiber story over two decades.
Ms.Cameron kept up her gossip exchange efforts with an broadening network of informants and sources. Key to her politically in these years was Don Boudria, a member of the Liberal Rat Pack at the time.

[Read RCMP note about Boudria]

The story was beginning to fade prior to the election of the Chretien government in 1993. The RCMP had closed their investigation begun following the letter from an anonymous Canadian. Prior to their taking office senior Liberals were seen quizzing Ottawa Press Gallery members for their background knowledge on Airbus. Shortly, after being sworn in as Attorney General Alan Rock wrote to the RCMP citing media reports about the story.

LIBERALS RE-OPEN AIRBUS ON WINNING POWER

The RCMP opened a new investigation, which by the end of 1994 had run out of leads given the absence of any documentation or witnesses to the allegations concerning bribes allegedly paid by Airbus agents. In January 1995, at the direction of the Commissioner of the RCMP, Ms.Cameron was asked for an interview, based on her public allegations against Mr. Mulroney.

Ms.Cameron was finishing the manuscript for her first book-length attack on Mr.Mulroney, “On the Take” published in 1995, when she agreed to become a source for the RCMP. Not surprisingly, she did not share that information with her readers.

On January 23, she phoned Staff Sergeant Francis Feigenwald to say that ‘The Fifth Estate’ has a new “European source” and was planning to break a new aspect of the story.

[Read RCMP document]

REPORTER BECOMES RCMP CI A2948

On January 25, 1995, Ms.Cameron travelled to Ottawa to visit the RCMP at their headquarters. She conceded that she had “no new evidence to offer” and that she had been “scooped” by Ferguson and Cashore and their program on ‘The Fifth Estate.’

Even at this first meeting, Ms.Cameron admitted that she had not found the smoking gun that she had been seeking for her book and she had only “two smoking cap pistols” to offer. Neither involved the main story, and the RCMP told her they were not candidates for a criminal investigation anyway.

Ms.Cameron then criticized the RCMP at length for their failure to make better progress on the investigation, and blamed their “reporting relationship to the federal government.” She cited former Assistant Commissioner Rod Stamler as one of the sources for her concern.

Years later in the Eurocopter trial, Stamler was asked for his view of Ms. Cameron. He said, “very talkative… she talks to too many people, adding that he did not believe she had information sources for her story at the time.” He described her as “potentially a good source, but dangerous.” [Read full quote]

[Notes from RCMP visit]

[RCMP Project Airbus Synopsis]

On March 31, 1995 Harvey Cashore phoned the RCMP to say he was prepared to meet with them, saying he will be ‘better informed’ after he meets with a “Der Spiegel” reporter. [See RCMP Notes]

On May 1, 1995, she called the RCMP to say that “she had some documentation that would like to share with us.” She said that the documents showed that “40 million would have been paid to the liasing [sic] company for the Airbus deal. Cameron mentioned that one quarter of the money was meant for a politician and she mentioned Brian Mulroney,” according to the notes taken by Supt. Chris Gallant.

[Supt Gallant Notes]

[Gallant Transit Slip]

[Gallant Report]

On May 4, 1995, Ms.Cameron welcomed to RCMP officers to her Toronto home, for the first of what became regular meetings with her RCMP handler. RCMP Staff Sergeant Francis Fiegenwald discussed the case with her for several hours, and expressed their frustration at the absence of useful documentary evidence. [Eurocopter transcript]

Ms.Cameron then went upstairs to her home office, and returned with dozens of pages of documentation, mostly taken from the German magazine Der Spiegel, which had been investigating German campaign finance corruption. She conceded that the material had come to her from Harvery Cashore at ‘The Fifth Estate,’ but gave it to the RCMP nonetheless.

Cashore also met with the RCMP that day, but decided not to co-operate with their investigation. He was not told that Ms. Cameron had given them his investigation files.

[RCMP Note re: Cashore]

LIBERALS LAUNCH LIBEL AGAINST MULRONEY

The investigation continued through that summer, and in September came the bombshell that derailed Brian Mulroney’s life. It sent to the world the message that Canada was corrupt at the highest levels of government decision-making.

The infamous “Letter of Request” for assistance had been drafted and redrafted by the Liberal government and the RCMP seven times to meet the tough disclosure standards demanded by the Swiss. It accused the former prime minister of having received a multi-million dollar bribe.

As they must have known it would, the shocking news leaked to the international media immediately, first in Europe and then in Canada. The source of the leaks in Switzerland has never been discovered.

In Canada, however, the case is clearer. In an investigation years later, Staff Sergeant Francis Fiegenwald, by then the sole handler for RCMP confidential informant A2948, admitted he had told his CI about the Letter of Request, and that Mr. Mulroney was named in it.

That informant, given the secret code number A2948 was, of course, Ms.Cameron.

[RCMP Project Airbus review]

Project Airbus, as it was then known within the RCMP then began to gain momentum consuming the time of dozens of investigators, and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Three separate investigation teams travelled the world pursuing leads. They reviewed the work of the 1988-90 investigation, but the “road map” for the entire investigation remained, “the anonymous letter which sparked the 1988 investigation.”

[RCMP Project Airbus Review 2]

The RCMP interviewed dozens of individuals. They found little, despite the fact that “interviewees have not, often to our surprise, been reluctant to discuss their involvement in the contracts under investigation. With a few exceptions, the interviewees have been quite forthcoming.”

[RCMP Project Airbus Review 3]

Ms. Cameron did her best to be helpful during this period. She met with the RCMP “on average every three weeks” for more than two years…. In a later review of her role by the force she was cited 686 (sic) times in investigation documents, not including reports on her own meetings with her handlers.

[MBB Transcript]

ALLAN ROCK ADMITS DEFEAT, APOLOGIZES

However by the end of 1996, it was clear that investigation had failed, there was no case. In January 1997, Allan Rock asked Brian Mulroney’s legal team whether they would be prepared to settle his defamation suit against the federal government in return for a public admission that the accusations were false, and a public apology.

In October of that year, following an arbitration by Justice Allan Gold, the federal government made a settlement offer to Mr. Mulroney to reimburse him for his millions of dollars in professional costs. He accepted, thinking that such an agreement would end his harassment.

It did not.

‘The Fifth Estate’ continued their attacks. Ms. Cameron published a second book with Harvey Cashore in 2001, “The Last Amigo,” attempting to revive the soap opera with new allegations concerning Karl-Heinz Schreiber.

[Transcript]

Her role in the long running saga was about to come to an end, however, as a result of the so-called “secret trial” following the investigation into Karl Heinz Schreiber’s role in the sale of Eurocopter helicopters to Ottawa. In the various affidavits and testimony surrounding the battle over the search warrant issued as part of the Eurocopter investigation and in the subsequent trial, Ms. Cameron’s role was finally revealed.

She made great efforts to prevent it, then angrily denied the claim that she was an informant in the Globe and Mail, and was then denounced by them for having broken one of the most sacred tenets of journalism, reporters do not snitch on sources to the police.

Ms.Cameron wisely remained out of the ‘Schreiber affair’ limelight in this period. It is not known what role she may have played in the Globe and CBC’s work with members of the Liberal caucus this summer to revive the Mulroney Schreiber affair. The many planning meetings between Cashore, Greg McArthur of the Globe, Mr.Schreiber in jail and out, his lawyer Eddie Greenspan, and members of the Liberal caucus are known.

LIBERALS AND CBC REVIVE MULRONEY ATTACK, SAVE SCHREIBER

The CBC used the false affidavit filed by Mr. Schreiber in his increasingly desperate efforts to avoid extradition as the basis for the most recent attack on Mr. Mulroney. They timed its airdate with the return of the House of Commons in October last year, and successfully relaunched the assault on Mulroney and Canada’s reputation for probity and transparency in public life.

For reasons best known to her, Ms Cameron initially volunteered to appear before the Commons Ethics committee, then got cold feet, and was finally persuaded to appear. On her blog last week she lashed out at her former informant Francois Martin for his characterization of her as an author of “prose.”

Today the Committee will have an opportunity to ask her about her role in the launch, promotion, and revival of this embarrassing soap opera. Among the questions to which Canadians deserve an answer is her knowledge of the 1988 letter to the RCMP, her role in the leaking of the federal government’s “Letter of Request” attack on Mr. Mulroney, and whether she was an informant to European, American or other investigators in addition to her work as RCMP confidential informant A2948.

_______________________________________________

Miscellaneous Documents/Quotes

[Project A-102]

[“A” Division 97-10-20]

[RCMP Dickson Report]

Michael Harris, The Ottawa Sun, March 5, 2004

Her books speak for themselves. “On the Take” is the all-time bestseller in Canadian non-fiction - even though, in the opinion of this author, it added nothing to the public record except the telling pattern of corruption that dogged the Tories during those years. Lack of new information notwithstanding, it was a lovely piece of work, though in the end, unfair in a strange way to its maligned but not indicted subject. The gravity of the accusation was not supported by the evidence. Not my kind of story, but it was perfectly Stevie.

Doucet evidence disproves Schreiber claim

 Email To Friend |  Print |13/02/08

In October 2007, Mr. Schreiber shared the mandate letter he and Fred Doucet had discussed in early 2000 with the Fifth Estate. The mandate letter, which Fred Doucet tabled for the House of Commons Ethics Committee yesterday, was an effort to memorialize the agreement between Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Schreiber. [The document can be viewed here]. As Doucet testified yesterday, it has Mr. Schreiber’s handwriting and edits.

Interestingly, when asked about the document by the Fifth Estate, Schrieber said:

I forgot about it. I didn’t even look at it. I took it home and left it in my file and that’s it.

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