Critics claim Mulroney should pay back libel settlement

I doubt that Mulroney will ever pay back the money. He has always been devious and crooked and no doubt happy to enjoy his settlement money. Of course he will also continue to maintain with a very wounded tone that he is completely innocent of any wrongdoing. The Liberal government was wrong to pay off Mulroney in the first place. They should have let the issue go to court.

The Oliphant inquiry was very narrow in its focus so a lot of the important questions remain not only unanswered but unexamined. This is from the Star.

Pay back libel settlement, critics tell Mulroney

Richard J. Brennan



OTTAWA—A chorus of voices is demanding former prime minister Brian Mulroney pay back the $2-million libel settlement he was awarded in 1997 in light of an inquiry that says he was less than forthright while testifying under oath.

“I think this money was acquired effectively through false pretenses, and Canadians feel it’s wrong,” Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff told reporters Tuesday.

“I think Mr. Mulroney’s let Canadians down, and I think (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper as a close friend, apparently confidante, should tell Mr. Mulroney to give the money back,” Ignatieff said.

Others say Mulroney should pay back the money with interest.

In his report on the Mulroney-Schreiber affair released Monday, Justice Jeffrey Oliphant said Mulroney had an obligation to tell the truth about his business dealings with German-Canadian arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber, who gave him three envelopes stuffed with at least $225,000 cash for lobbying work that was never done.

“Mr. Mulroney was well aware when such disclosure was clearly called for,” Oliphant said.

When pressed during question period about whether the government is prepared to go after Mulroney for the money, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson was vague.

“The report is now with the appropriate authorities who will study it. And the government will respond to any recommendations in this area in due course,” said Nicholson.

While Oliphant’s extensive report does recommend ways this kind of conflict of interest can be avoided??, it does not specifically direct the government to seek to retrieve the money from the former prime minister.

“Of course Mr. Mulroney should have to pay back the money. It’s very clear from what emerged in that report that that’s what he should do, the legal fees as well,” NDP Leader Jack Layton told reporters, referring to the $1.8 million Canadians had to pay for Mulroney’s legal fees in the libel suit.

Layton and Ignatieff agreed moral suasion should be tried first. If that doesn’t work, then they say legal action should be investigated.

Mulroney didn't want cash made public..

This is hardly surprising! Mulroney is a good example of a successful politician managing to sue a panicky govt. for millions while at the same time not mentioning he had taken cash in envelopes from Schreiber supposedly for lobbying on behalf of the German arms dealer's clients. The Air Bus deal reeks of influence peddling. The one bright spot is that at least the Air Bus seems to be a decent plane !


Mulroney didn't want cash made public, probe told TheStar.com - Canada - Mulroney didn't want cash made public, probe told
April 24, 2009 Richard J. BrennanOTTAWA BUREAU
OTTAWA–Author William Kaplan said yesterday Brian Mulroney repeatedly tried to stop him from making public that the former prime minister took cash from arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber.
"Mr. Mulroney did not want the story of the cash payment to become public and encouraged me on a number of occasions not to report on that," Kaplan told a public inquiry probing Mulroney's 1993-94 business dealings with Schreiber.
Schreiber says he paid Mulroney $300,000 to lobby for a project to build German-designed military vehicles in Canada. He says the deal was struck just before Mulroney stepped down as prime minister. Mulroney has admitted taking $225,000 from Schreiber, but says he violated no federal ethics rules.
Federal lawyers at one time alleged that Mulroney and Schreiber were involved in a kickback scheme surrounding the 1988 purchase by Air Canada of Airbus jetliners. Mulroney successfully sued the then-Liberal government over that claim and was awarded $2.1 million in compensation in 1997.
Kaplan, a lawyer, has written two books about Mulroney – Presumed Guilty, published in 1998, and A Secret Trial, six years later.
The first portrayed Mulroney as an innocent victim with respect to the kickback allegations. But Kaplan said yesterday he followed it up with a book "to set the record straight" about Mulroney after he found out about the cash payments.
"When Mr. Mulroney was suing the Canadian people for $50 million ... he should have told us that he was taking cash in motels from Mr. Schreiber ... " he told Mulroney's Ottawa lawyer, Guy Pratte, yesterday, adding that he and Canadians were "duped."

Mulroney's Causes have done well under Harper government

How interesting that Harper makes sure to keep his distance from his former buddy Mulroney. The cream of the corporate crop on the other hand invite him to be on their boards and he also gets to sit on the Council on Foreign Relations. The Harper govt. seems not to be wary of advancing the interest of these firms in spite of their contamination by Mulroney! The Quebecor printing segment though is in need of more than an injection of Mulroney blarney. I believe it is in bad shape.

Mulroney's causes have done well under Harper government

Former prime minister's directorships tie in closely with with major policies of Harper government.

by the Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors, which has granted permission to republish this article.

What are the odds on this? Brian Mulroney sits on the board of directors of the following 5 corporations. Stephen Harper's policies are designed to benefit these same corporations, many at the expense of Canadians.

Let's take a closer look at Brian Mulroney's main Directorships and see how they tie-in with the Harper government's policies:

1) Archer Daniels Midland Company and the Canada Wheat Board

One of the world's largest processors of agricultural products, ADM purchases soybeans, wheat and cocoa to convert to ethanol and biodiesel, soymeal and oil, corn sweeteners, flour, cocoa and chocolate, as well as a wide portfolio of other value-added food ingredients, animal nutrition and industrial products.

ADM has a history of price fixing and was levied with one of the largest fines in the industry of $100 million.

Stephen Harper has been trying to eliminate the Canada Wheat Board with various underhanded tricks and schemes, despite the protests of farmers. The Canada Wheat Board is an international success story -- for Canadian farmers.

Destroying it would be of great benefit to ADM, as it would weaken the collective bargaining power of Canadian farmers, (the main purpose of the Wheat Board) and create a fractured market of wheat and barley sellers, which will only benefit major buyers like ADM. See: Harper comes out swinging at Wheat Board

2) Barrick Gold Corporation

Stephen Harper's jaunt to Tanzania this month was supposed to be a feel-good news item about Canadian aid to one of the poorest nations on earth, but the real agenda, that of Barrick Gold, dominated: Yet it was a 45-minute meeting with officials from a dozen Canadian investors, led by mining giant Barrick Gold Corp., that dominated Mr. Harper's news conference with President Jakaya Kikwete. Barrick has been accused of irresponsible mining practices in the country, and failure to pay adequate royalties. See: Human rights rhetoric contradicted by rush for Colombia trade pact

3) The Blackstone Group L.P.

As one of the world's largest private equity players, the Blackstone Group will reap massive benefits from Stephen Harper's elimination of the 15% withholding tax on interest paid by private equity firms on leveraged buyout debt.

Plus, his punitive tax and growth restrictions on income trusts in the hands of Canadian Investors but NOT in the hands foreign private equity like Blackstone has resulted in the perfect situation for them to pick off these sitting ducks. To date there has been $65 billion worth of takleover activity caused by this policy -- over half of it by private equity via leveraged buyout loans.

4) Quebecor Inc.

The second largest printing company in the world has been moving into communications, including Sun Media, cable and internet, and telecommunications.

A federal agency plans to review lobbying by Brian Mulroney on behalf of Quebecor Inc that could benefit from Harper's decision to open up the wireless industry to more competition according to CBC News and this report from the Globe and Mail.

5) Council on Foreign Relations

David Rockefeller's CFR is the main proponent of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, whose main goal is to bring about the North American Union under the self described process of "evolution by stealth". This is Stephen Harper's overall plan for Canada. He has gone to great lengths to hide these activities from Parliament and from Canadians as he knows full well that this abrogation of our sovereignty will never be supported by the people of this country.

Harper has been tasked with securing Canada's energy resources (oil, gas, wheat, water, electricity) for the US and what better guide than Mr Mulroney, who knows all about selling out Canada's interests.

The following are Brian Mulroney's Directorships as per Ogilvy Renault:
Barrick Gold Corporation
Archer Daniels Midland Company
Wyndham Worldwide Corporation
The Blackstone Group L.P.
Independent News and Media PLC
Quebecor Inc.

He is also a member of the International Advisory Councils of the China International Trust and Investment Corporation, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Lion Capital LLP.

Mr. Mulroney is also a director of the Montreal Heart Institute Foundation, the International Advisory Council of HEC Montréal, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mulroney's tall tale?

This is from the CBC.. One plausible explanation of these findings is that Mulroney made up the whole story. But then would Mulroney lie?;)

CBC-Globe report finds no evidence to back up Mulroney testimony
Former Thyssen board member calls lobbying claim 'absolute nonsense'
Last Updated: Monday, February 11, 2008 3:34 PM ET
CBC News
A joint investigation by the CBC and the Globe and Mail has failed to find any corroboration for former prime minister Brian Mulroney's explanation of cash payments from German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber.
During his testimony before a federal ethics committee hearing in December, Mulroney said he received cash payments — $225,000 in three instalments — from Schreiber after the then Tory leader left office in 1993.
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney prepares to testify before the Commons ethics committee on Parliament Hill in December. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
The former prime minister said the money was remuneration for his work as an international lobbyist for Thyssen, a German manufacturer of armoured vehicles.
Mulroney told the committee that Schreiber hired him for "international representation" to lobby leaders in Russia, China and France on behalf of Thyssen, promoting the company's armoured vehicles for national needs and for use in United Nations peacekeeping operations.
The CBC and Globe contacted officials familiar with military sales in Russia, China, France, Canada as well as the company itself in its attempts to verify the former prime minister's claims, the CBC's Harvey Cashore said.
"While there's no evidence to disprove what Mr. Mulroney is saying, we couldn't find any evidence so far to corroborate it," Cashore said Monday.


"Everyone was scratching their heads. No one had heard about this."
In interviews with CBC News and the Globe and Mail, a former executive and spokeswoman for Thyssen said it has no official record of Mulroney doing any work for the company.
Winfried Haastert, who was on Thyssen's board at the time, told the CBC in a telephone interview that Mulroney's testimony of his lobbying deal with Schreiber was news to those who worked for the company.
"It's absolute nonsense," Haastert said. "We have not asked for this and we could simply not have imagined that."
Anja Gerber, spokeswoman for the company, which changed its name to ThyssenKrupp Technologies after a merger in 1999, told the journalists that Mulroney had "no official business with Thyssen."
Schreiber testified that the payments amounted to $300,000 and that terms were discussed while Mulroney was still prime minister. Mulroney denied he negotiated a lobbying deal with Schreiber while he was still in office, saying he promoted business on Schreiber's behalf only after stepping down.
'I just find it very strange'
Mulroney said he lobbied Chinese officials on behalf of Thyssen during a trip to Beijing in 1993. But Fred Bild, Canada's then ambassador to China, told CBC News he was with Mulroney on the trip, and said the former prime minister not once even mentioned to him he was lobbying for Thyssen.
"As far as we at the embassy were aware, we were not aware of anything of the sort, and we would have been, normally," Bild said. "I just find it very strange."
At the time of his trip, arms-trade sanctions that Mulroney's government imposed on China in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre were still in place, Bild said.
The former prime minister also testified he lobbied then Russian president Boris Yeltsin in 1994, amid the country's difficult transition from the end of the Cold War, during which it was trying to sell much of its own military stock, according to defence expert Christopher Foss.
"As for selling vehicles to the Russians — forget it," said Foss, who tracks international military vehicle sales for the British publication, Jane's Defence Weekly.
Mulroney also told the committee he made two trips to France, in 1993 and 1994, to promote the Thyssen vehicles.
"You must be joking," Foss said of whether France, a leading armoured-vehicle exporters, would be in the market to buy vehicles from a German company.
Mulroney will have the chance to give more details himself soon. He's expected to testify again in front of the committee before the end of the month.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said a public inquiry will begin once the committee has finished its investigation, which could take several months.

Harper calls for public inquiry into Mulroney-Schreiber affair.

This is from the CBC. There is also another article at the CBC in which some opposition members criticise Harper for delaying the inquiry until after the Ethics Hearings. Critics fear that there may be an election call before the Inquiry gets underway.
As I expected Johnson actually suggested that Harper might not even call an inquiry given the testimony before the Ethics Committee. However, Harper took a middle ground and accepted an inquiry but the focus is narrow. This will prevent the opposition from dredging for more mud!



PM calls for public inquiry into Mulroney-Schreiber affair
Announcement comes after release of Johnston report
Last Updated: Friday, January 11, 2008 | 8:28 PM ET
CBC News
The federal government will launch a public inquiry into former prime minister Brian Mulroney's business dealings with Karlheinz Schreiber, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Friday.

But Harper said the inquiry will only be held after a federal ethics committee finishes its own hearings into the hundreds of thousands of dollars Mulroney received from Schreiber, a German-Canadian businessman, in the 1990s.

The ethics committee has not said when it will wrap up its probe, but it likely won't be for several months.

Opposition MPs were quick to accuse Harper of purposely delaying an inquiry that could be damaging to his government. The opposition speculated that Harper is expecting that a federal election will be called in the interim, derailing the inquiry altogether.

"It's a minority government. He knows he'll get to an election before this inquiry ever gets on its feet," said Nova Scotia Liberal Robert Thibault.

But Harper said it is important to let the committee finish its work.



"This will ensure that the public inquiry will usefully build on any testimony heard by the ethics committee," Harper said in a news release, explaining that he has not yet set the exact parameters for the inquiry.

Mulroney made little comment about the announcement Friday, except to say he had taken note of the call for an inquiry. Schreiber said the inquiry is "a good start" and a step "in the right direction."

Government should do 'cost-benefit analysis'
Harper made his call for an inquiry after reviewing a report from University of Waterloo president David Johnston, who was asked to advise the government on the scope an inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair should have.

The 28-page report, which was delivered to Harper on Wednesday, says that an inquiry should be focused on unanswered questions that are of true interest to the Canadian public.

An inquiry should not be open-ended, rehashing the details probed extensively in the RCMP investigations and lawsuits that have examined the 25-year history between the two men, the report says.

"They should not be permitted to become expensive, lengthy, unfocused reviews of vague allegations or of issues driven by partisan politics rather than public interest," the report says. "The government must make a 'cost-benefit analysis' to determine how wide-ranging the public inquiry should be."

The report states specifically that there should be no further examination of the Airbus affair. The RCMP spent eight years investigating allegations that Mulroney accepted kickbacks from Air Canada's 1988 purchase of Airbus planes.

The RCMP never laid any charges and Mulroney launched a defamation lawsuit against the federal government. He got a formal apology and a $2.1 million settlement in 1997.

The money is of most interest: report
The report suggests that the matter of most interest is the money Mulroney received from Schreiber, who is facing extradition to face tax, bribery and fraud charges in Germany.

He was scheduled to be sent out of Canada on Dec. 1, but received a delay to testify in the expected inquiry. He is currently out on bail and trying to launch a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

"I have concluded that the concerns of many Canadians arose from the fact that a former prime minister took large cash payments from someone now implicated in questionable transactions, and whose extradition for various charges has been sought," Johnston says in the report.

However, Johnston notes that when he was asked to serve as an adviser to the government in November, Mulroney had not yet testified before the ethics committee and had never publicly explained why he took money from Schreiber.

Now that Mulroney has testified, perhaps an inquiry isn't even needed, Johnson says in the report, although he notes that he was only asked to provide parameters for an inquiry, he was not asked to probe whether an inquiry should be held or not.

"The landscape has changed. Whether the government would call an inquiry today and whether Canadians would see the pressing need for such an inquiry are questions that naturally arise by reason of this changed landscape."

Mulroney told the ethics committee in December that he received cash payments from Schreiber after he left office in June 1993. He said he was paid $225,000 in three instalments, and that the money was payment for his efforts as an international lobbyist on behalf of Thyssen, a German armoured vehicle company.

He has acknowledged waiting until 1999 to pay tax on the money.

Schreiber has argued that the total was $300,000, and that the arrangement was reached while Mulroney was serving his last days as prime minister in 1993. Schreiber, who appeared before the ethics committee on four separate occasions, said Mulroney did nothing to earn the money.

Mulroney's Testimony before Ethics Committee

If one had to choose between who is the most consummate liar in this affair one would have to give the palm to Mulroney. He can sound absolutely convincing with his honeyed wounded tones. But the facts speak for themselves. He took the money by the bagful, failed to declare it until he more or less had to, in effect lied about his Schreiber involvements and got millions from the public purse as a result. Of course it was our money! He has no record of what it was used for! Schreiber certainly can reasonably complain there is no evidence that Mulroney did anything to earn his bags of cash.


An article in the Star is among many on Mulroney's recent testimony. A short couple of paragraphs sums up some of the important aspects of the situation Mulroney simply has not adequately explained.


But observers said Mulroney's declarations only cemented in the public's mind the fact that he took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from Schreiber and secreted it away without paying taxes on it for at least six years.

Given that the former prime minister only approached tax authorities about the money after Schreiber was arrested in 1999 on the charges from Germany, many opposition MPs felt Mulroney's explanations left a lot to be desired.

There were other missing pieces in the puzzle. Mulroney was asked Thursday why he did not disclose the payments he received from Schreiber when he was giving evidence under oath in 1996 as part of his libel suit against the Canadian government arising from Ottawa's Airbus investigation. He said he was asked only about events related to the Airbus sale.

And he said he was unable to provide notes, receipts or other records to show how he used the money he got from Schreiber as a retainer and expense money for the military vehicles project.

How the Mulroney-Schreiber Affair really matters to Canada

This is from James Laxer's Blog. The article's real importance is to show the devastating effect that NAFTA had in limiting Canadian economic policy and how it tied it in with the US policy aims. It is interesting too in showing how German right wing politics using Schreiber as an agent managed to influence what happened in the Conservative Party here ending up with the election of Mulroney. The Liberals were not at all blameless in the NAFTA affair though. In 1993 they ran on a platform of renegotiating NAFTA but never did so. As an except from this site shows.
Despite this many Canadian politicians have made peace with the agreement, including most of the governing Liberal Party of Canada, which campaigned in the 1993 election to renegotiate the teaty but then took no steps to do so and even signed an extension of the Free Trade Agreement (the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA) in 1994

How the Mulroney-Schreiber Affair Really Matters to Canada

There are many Canadians whose interest in the Mulroney-Schreiber Affair does not extend beyond the delicious anticipation of watching the 18th prime minister of Canada explain to a Parliamentary Committee why he accepted bags of cash which he took some time to declare as income.

The affair does have a much deeper importance, though, which is rooted in the way key decisions were made in Canada during the crucial decade of the 1980s. It was the decade when Canada signed on to the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. The FTA, and is successor NAFTA, drove a stake into the heart of Canadian democracy. Under the terms of these treaties, Canada was required to accord “national treatment” to U.S. firms, meaning that Canada could no longer discriminate in favour of domestic firms in its taxation and subsidy policies. Nor could Canada create new publicly owned firms to compete with U.S. corporations without paying out crippling financial compensation to them.

Moreover, the FTA took much of the control of the Canadian petroleum industry out of Canadian jurisdiction. It stipulated that Canada could not have a two-price system for its petroleum in which Americans would pay the world price for Canadian oil imports while Canadians would pay a lower price. And it committed Canada, at any given time, to sell at least as much petroleum to the U.S. as it had sold on average over the preceding three years, even if this were to mean petroleum shortages for eastern Canadians who were reliant on imported oil.

The Mulroney government made all these concessions to the Americans without gaining unfettered access to the U.S. market in return. American trade law remained in place alongside the FTA, allowing the U.S. to mount countervailing duties against Canadian exporters to protect U.S. producers---as the United States has repeatedly done in the case of softwood lumber.

What has all this to do with Karlheinz Schreiber?

We know that, acting on the instructions of his Bavarian masters, whose leader was Franz Joseph Strauss, Minister President of Bavaria and the dominant voice in the Christian Social Union, the fervently right-wing partner in German politics of the more moderate Christian Democratic Union, Schreiber helped finance the overthrow of Joe Clark as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party.

In 1993, the PCs held a federal convention in Winnipeg and a review of Clark’s leadership was on the agenda. Strauss and his CSU henchmen saw it as their role to support the rise to leadership of conservatives of their ilk in the right-wing parties of the West. In their eyes, Joe Clark was an old-fashioned conservative, a red-tory who was too firmly Canadian for the new era of globalization. As was revealed in 2001, on the CBC program, the Fifth Estate, Mr. Schreiber helped fund the effort to fly delegates to Winnipeg who would vote against the leadership of Joe Clark.

Schreiber explained that he gave money to Walter Wolf, a member of the group that was determined to dump Clark. Schreiber put it pithily: “It’s expensive to travel, right? For this is what Walter Wolf collected the money, and then get the people in which worked for you, and you paid their fare, and perhaps he said to you, they need some money for their wives, they want to go shopping, or whatever, for the hotels.”

When Clark received the support of 66.9 per cent of the delegates, short of the 70 per cent he felt he needed, he called on the party to convene a leadership convention, the convention at which Mulroney succeeded him as leader.

Schreiber and the Bavarians had played a role, quite likely decisive, in nudging the support to dump Clark above the thirty per cent level at Winnipeg. With Mulroney as PC leader and later as prime minister, Schreiber and his associates felt they had a man with whom they could come to understandings.

Franz Joseph Strauss, in addition to being the leader of the most right-wing brand of mainstream German politics in the post-war decades, was involved in the 1970s in the founding of Airbus, the European civilian aircraft manufacturer that challenged American Boeing for the multibillion dollar business involved in selling aircraft to the airlines of the whole world. Strauss became chairman of Airbus in the late 1980s and held that position until his death in 1988.

For the past several decades, the Europeans and the Americans have been fighting a no-holds-barred struggle to sell their respective aircraft to the world. The Europeans have subsidized and bribed their way to success, while the Americans have used Department of Defense contracts to buttress their national champion.

Both sides wanted to sell their planes to Air Canada. In 1988, government owned Air Canada signed a contract to purchase 34 Airbus A330s and A340s. Not only Boeing, but the U.S. government, was heartily annoyed by this victory for the European competitor. And the details of how this came about remain highly controversial.

What matters more than how the deal was or was not lubricated, is that during the 1980s, Canada was being put out of the business of fostering national industrial champions so that it could play in the big leagues. And this benefited both the Europeans and the Americans.

If the Europeans got the Airbus contract, the Americans got the FTA, with all its arrangements that made it impossible for Canada to support its own industries. While neo-con Canadian politicians from Mulroney to Harper sold the line to Canadians that governments should stay out of the marketplace, the Europeans and the Americans spent billions ensuring the success of their industrial champions, with all the employment, technological, strategic and sleazy benefits that went with that.

What mattered when Karlheinz, everyone’s favourite Christmas uncle, helped replace Joe Clark with Brian Mulroney, is that the door was opened to the globalization deals in Canada in the 1980s that helped shove this country down the global ladder to the position we occupy today as suppliers of oil sands oil to the Americans and greenhouse gas emissions to the planet.

What I can’t fathom are the media pundits whose line of analysis is that what went on in the 1980s was the bad old days of influence peddling and that all this has happily been put behind us. Are they kidding?

When Brian Mulroney came to power and made his deals, Canadian democracy was fundamentally weakened. We live today in the nether world of plutocracy, in which those with big money ensure that they get the arrangements that favour them. They twist arms, fight wars, educate economists to peddle their line, and yes, they bribe whenever and wherever it is necessary.

Mordechai Richler on Brian Mulroney

This is a short passage from Mordecai Richler's "Belling the Cat" pg 292 (Knopf, 1998)

All politicians lie, but few as often, or as mellifluously, as did Sincerely Yours, Brian Mulroney, who lied even when it wasn't necessary, just to keep in shape, his voice, a dead giveaway, sinking into his Guccis whenever he was about to deliver one of his whoppers.

Richler has a whole essay "Bye, bye Mulroney" in the book, quite amusing and caustic of course.

Mulroney does well on corporate boards etc.

This is excerpted from Canada.com Mulroney is also chair of the board of Quebecor World. His spokesperson Luc Lavoie who just resigned is also a vice-president of Quebecor. He claims that he will not have time to be his spokesman during the Schreiber inquiry. No doubt it is a full time job to try to shield Mulroney from all the foul smelling projectiles aimed at tarnishing his pristine reputation!


Schreiber is suing Mulroney for return of the money, claiming Mulroney did no work for it.

Mulroney says the money was a retainer for representing Schreiber on a venture to market pasta machines and on a project to construct a military vehicle plant in Montreal. The factory was never built.

When Mulroney left office, he had a $33,500 annual government pension.

But insiders who knew him said he knew he would get numerous lucrative jobs in the private sector. While in office, "he made sure he cultivated massive business relationships," one source said.

He jumped right into a position at the law firm Ogilvy Renault. His earnings there are secret, even from his fellow partners. But he is considered a major rainmaker for the firm, which would put his earnings at about $1 million.

Also confidential is how much of his income derives from fees he earns sitting on various corporate boards.

Within a short time of leaving office, he did find himself on nine boards, for which he was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. These included Horsham Corp., which at the time was a large shareholder in Barrick Gold, Trizec and Clark Oil, Barrick Gold and Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world's largest food processors.

Archer Daniels pays Mulroney $200,000 a year in cash and options. He now holds 85,192 shares in the company, valued at about $3 million U.S.

In 1994, Horsham paid him $120,000 for "advisory services."

Also in 1994, Barrick Gold Corp. paid him $141,000 for "advisory services and reimbursement of expenses."

Barrick also gave him 250,000 stock options in November 1993, plus another 250,000 in September 1994.

Mulroney has earned millions of dollars exercising his stock options. In 1999, for example, he earned $756,750, and in 2000 he earned another $1.48 million in this way. By the end of 2006, he owned 425,000 Barrick options, valued at $3.7 million U.S.

In 1994, he earned $75,000 U.S. as a board member of the Freedom Forum in Washington, D.C.

Mulroney was also earning as much as $45,000 per speaking engagement.

In addition, Mulroney in 1993 took seats on boards of Petrofina SA of Belgium, which was partially owned by Power Corp., Pro-Agro of Venezuela, the China International Trust and investment Corp., Chemical Bank of New York and Power Corp. International.

Mulroney was also on the advisory board of Bombardier Aerospace, where he had been hired to help market the company's business jets.

During that time, Mulroney was spending about $1 million renovating his home at 47 Forden Cres. in Westmount, which he had purchased in 1993 for $1.68 million with a mortgage of $1.26 million. Mortgage payments would have cost him about $10,000 a month.

He was also sending his oldest son to Duke University in North Carolina, his daughter Caroline to Harvard University in Massachusetts and his two other sons to private schools.

There was never a clear public record of how much money Mulroney had when he left office. Senator David Angus was quoted at the time saying Mulroney was "a millionaire."

Angus did not return phone calls for this article.

Others said Mulroney had spent most of his settlement with his former company, the Iron Ore Co. of Canada, where he served as president before becoming prime minister.

According to Stevie Cameron's book On the Take, industry leaders raised about $4 million for Mulroney to help finance the purchase and renovations of his Westmount home. Mulroney has never denied this.

Mulroney's secretary said the former PM was out of town and unavailable for comment.

Whatever the case, Mulroney knew he was stepping into big money when he stepped out of 24 Sussex Drive. He clearly had big expenses ahead - but he also had great prospects.

wmarsden@thegazette.canwest.com

Nicholson: Has he or hasn't he?

Until late Wednesday Nicholson claimed he did not have the power to delay the extradition of Schreiber on Saturday. Most legal beagles claim that he has but Nicholson stuck to his opinion although not providing any reasons why he didn't have discretionary power as his critics claim. But late Wednesday lo and behold:
The government announced late Wednesday that it would not extradite him while a last-ditch appeal remains before the courts, a surprising turn of events, given that Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has said repeatedly that he had no authority to take such action. (from the Globe and Mail)
Wow! Nicholson has newfound powers but also displays his ignorance in not knowing he had them apparently. Or maybe he is just plain incompetent.
The National Post has an article on the background of Schreiber's testimony. In his testimony although Schreiber refused to say very much until he has an opportunity to review his notes he did say that originally he was to pay Mulroney 500,000 dollars.
CBC has an article that discusses the Liberal attack on Nicholson's flip flop.

Mulroney offers no explanation

Seems to me since McQuaig wrote this Mulroney explained that he was stupid, and that is why he took the 300 thousand from Schreiber! McQuaig is right that Mulroney does not look very clean especially since he denied having any dealings with Schreiber just a few friendly cups of coffee or more likely caviar or smoked salmon.
McQuaig goes in for a bit of histrionics when she says what is at stake is whether Canadians can have confidence in our political system. That is not at issue at all. We can be confident that a few politicians on the take now and then should not reduce our confidence that our political system works just fine to promote the financial and power interests of those in our ruling class. This is from straight goods.
Mulroney offers no explanation

Harper rode a wave of outrage over the Liberal scandals all the way to 24 Sussex.

Dateline: Monday, November 19, 2007

by Linda McQuaig

There's already an energetic campaign by the Conservatives and their supporters to keep us distracted from the central image in the Mulroney-Schreiber affair.

That central image is former prime minister Brian Mulroney, in secret meetings in hotel rooms shortly after leaving office, accepting $300,000 in cash from lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber, a key figure in the billion-dollar sale of Airbus planes to Air Canada.

It's a hauntingly powerful image — an image more potentially damaging than any that emerged from the Gomery inquiry into the scandals of Jean Chrétien's Liberal government. Imagine if there'd been reports of Chrétien in a hotel room accepting bagloads of cash.

What's at stake is whether Canadians can have confidence in the integrity of our political system.



So as the Conservative spin doctors do their work, keep the image of what went on in those hotel rooms front and centre in your mind, and wait for an explanation. Because Mulroney hasn't given one.

In his public comments in Toronto on Monday night, Mulroney bellowed with outrage, portraying himself a victim of a vendetta by bureaucrats and journalists. But he offered no explanation as to why he accepted the cash, nor why he didn't report it in his tax returns at the appropriate time.

All this is a nightmare for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who rode a wave of outrage over the Liberal scandals all the way to 24 Sussex. In order to retain his credibility as a crusader for clean government, Harper has now been obliged to call a public inquiry into the dealings of Mulroney, his former mentor and fellow Conservative.

Harper made it sound as if his decision to call an inquiry was based purely on allegations by Schreiber. This is convenient for Harper (and Mulroney), since Schreiber can be dismissed as unreliable. After all, he's currently in jail fighting extradition to Germany, where he faces charges of bribery, fraud and tax evasion.

But the case doesn't hang on Schreiber's word. Mulroney himself has indirectly confirmed receiving the $300,000. Indeed, he's paid tax on it, filing a voluntary tax disclosure — a practice permitted by Canada Revenue Agency — to correct his earlier failure to report the payments in the tax periods in which he received them.

Perhaps Mulroney has an explanation for the payments — an explanation he's chosen not to share with the public. His spokesman Luc Lavoie has referred to the payments as a "retainer".

Mulroney has greatly contributed to suspicions by declining to acknowledge his financial dealings with Schreiber, even throwing investigators off track. When the RCMP launched an investigation in 1995, Mulroney sued for libel and testified under oath that he had only met Schreiber for coffee "once or twice" and "had never had any dealings with him".

Really? Does Mulroney not consider the payment of $300,000 some form of "dealing"? If he had no "dealings", what was the payment or "retainer" for? On the basis of Mulroney's testimony, the Canadian government ended up paying Mulroney a settlement of $2.1 million.

But there's much more at stake here than money. What's at stake is the most basic public interest — whether Canadians can have confidence in the integrity of our political system.

As the inquiry proceeds, the Conservatives will attempt to muddy the waters with a barrage of partisan counter-attacks. Mulroney will suck up precious airtime casting himself as the injured party.

All this sound and fury is designed to distract us. Ignore it. What matters is what happened in those hotel rooms: a former prime minister, a lobbyist and $300,000 in cash.

Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and commentator. She is the author of All You Can Eat, It's the Crude, Dude, and her latest book, Holding the Bully's Coat: Canada and the US Empire. You can reach her at her eddress below.

Schreiber to be called before ethics committee

I guess the ethics committee is the obvious place to hear the great ethicist and arms dealer Karl-Heinz Schreiber. I hope the chair has set strict rules about shouting in the committee. Recently the noise level has been a danger to ear drums.
Maybe the Conservatives will find some way to block the hearings as it has done previously.


Opposition wins vote to call Schreiber before Commons ethics committee

Juliet O'Neill
CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen


Friday, November 23, 2007


OTTAWA -- The Commons ethics committee voted Thursday to summon Karlheinz Schreiber from a Toronto jail to testify on the eve of his scheduled extradition to Germany about his dealings with former prime minister Brian Mulroney.

Conservative MP Russ Hiebert immediately denounced the decision to summon the German-Canadian businessman and to launch an inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair as "a politically motivated witch hunt." Mulroney will be summoned next month.

The vote was six to five, with MPs from the minority Conservative government outnumbered by the combined opposition of Liberals, Bloc Quebecois and New Democrat MPs.

Suspicious that the government might deport him despite a public inquiry being planned for next year, the majority authorized committee chair Paul Szabo to use whatever tools he needs to get Schreiber on the hot seat "without delay."

Szabo said the committee order will trump the extradition order. That may be a moot point, as Schreiber is buying more time by appealing the extradition order to the Supreme Court of Canada for the third time.

Conservative MPs said a government-ordered public inquiry will get to the bottom of the affair. One of them, Dean Del Mastro, said Canadians should be "outraged" by Liberals who want Schreiber to be allowed to collect his papers at his Ottawa home and given time to prepare a presentation to the committee.

"Even the worst prisoner in this country can be moved from place to place," Liberal MP Charles Hubbard shot back. Schreiber faces tax evasion, fraud, forgery and other charges in Germany, stemming from investigations into a political slush fund and transactions such as the sale of German armed vehicles to Saudi Arabia.

The political developments came amid reports Schreiber appealed his extradition to the Supreme Court for the third time in eight years. He has been in a Toronto detention centre for several weeks since he was detained for deportation. An appeal of his extradition order before the Ontario Court of Appeal last week failed, and Schreiber is set to be deported Dec. 1.

Allegations by Schreiber in a recent court affidavit prompted Prime Minister Stephen Harper to seek advice on how to protect the integrity of the office of the prime minister and to examine the legitimacy of a $2.1 million lawsuit settlement granted to Mulroney by the former Liberal government of Jean Chretien in 1997.

Schreiber's new allegations cast a cloud over the settlement and added new details to four-year-old revelations that Mulroney accepted $300,000 cash from Schreiber. The detailed allegations are that Mulroney cut a business deal with Schreiber before he stepped down as prime minister June 25, 1993, accepted $100,00 while he was still an MP, and got a promise from Mulroney to tell Harper in 2006 that their business was above-board and a private matter.

Mulroney's spokesman said this week at Mulroney took the $100,000 in cash when he was still an MP but there was nothing illegal about it.

Pushed by New Democrat Pat Martin, the ethics committee intends to study whether any public office holders broke conflict of interest and ethics codes and whether the codes need to be strengthened for the future. The Liberal and Bloc Quebecois element of the approved motion calls for a review of the Harper government's handling of the allegations.

Ottawa Citizen

© CanWes

Mulroney calls for full blown inquiry

I hate to say anything good about Brian Mulroney but in this case I certainly think that he is doing the right thing. I hope that Mulroney's call will be supported by action on the part of Harper. I predict that next week question period will be all about how much and when Harper knew about the affair. Other issues will be pushed aside. Everyone loves a juicy scandal more than anything else no matter how important.

Mulroney calls for full-blown public inquiry

Updated Tue. Nov. 13 2007 7:52 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney wants the government to call a public inquiry into allegations he improperly accepted money from German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber while still in office.

"I have come to the conclusion that in order to finally put this matter to rest and expose all the facts and the role played by all the people involved, from public servants to elected officials, from lobbyists to police authorities, as well as journalists, the only solution is for the government to launch a full-fledged public commission of inquiry," he said in a statement Monday night.

Mulroney told CTV News that he wants to demonstrate to Canadians that he's innocent, and said that no one has ever accused him of any wrongdoing.

Norman Spector, a former chief of staff to Mulroney, called his ex-boss' move a political masterstroke.

However, Spector told Canada AM on Wednesday that he believes a public inquiry "is guaranteed to bog down" over side issues and wouldn't result in the key questions being answered.

He thought the best way to get actual answers would be to appoint a special prosecutor with subpoena powers, similar to the system in place in British Columbia.

Last Friday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced he would appoint an independent third party to review the $300,000 Mulroney received from Schreiber. The first payment of $100,000 allegedly came shortly after Mulroney left the prime minister's office.

Mulroney has denied all allegations of impropriety. He received an apology from the government and a $2.1 million-settlement in 1997 after he was publicly mentioned in connection with an investigation into the sale of Airbus jets to Air Canada.

Schreiber is currently in a Toronto detention centre where he's fighting extradition to Germany, stemming from charges of bribery, fraud and tax evasion.

He said Monday he has kept meticulous records of his correspondence with Mulroney, including copies of letters, and has promised to reveal several "surprises" about their business dealings.

"I will have a suitcase full of surprises for these people, but I will not go in a contest for what these guys are saying or not saying," he told CTV News by phone. "I don't care."

He alleges that one of the letters he kept proves he discussed business matters with Mulroney one day before he retired as prime minister -- an allegation that Schreiber also filed in a court affidavit.

Schreiber also claims a copy of the letter was sent to Harper last March, but Harper denies ever receiving it. Schreiber also claimed that Mulroney wanted to show Harper the letter when he visited him at Harrington Lake in July 2006.

Harper told reporters he met with Mulroney in August 2006, not July, and the letter was never mentioned.

"We did not talk about the relationship between Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Mulroney did not give me any letter," Harper told a press conference.

On Monday, Schreiber said he was surprised Harper never read the letter.

"Is he surrounded so much by people who didn't want him to see the material? This would mean that Mulroney's people were so around him that he is nothing more than a puppet," said Schreiber.

He also said the letter is just one of many he's sent to Harper about the case.

"I would say it's more in the neighbourhood of 15 to 20 letters, because I send him a copy of each letter I have sent to other people," he said.

None of Schreiber's allegations have been proven in court and Mulroney maintains his innocence.

Schreiber is an international lobbyist and arms dealer with a history of controversy. He's fought extradition to Germany for 10 years.

With reports from CTV's Robert Fife and Lisa LaFlamme


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NDP calls for full inquiry into Mulroney affair

This is from the CTV. Interesting that Harper received info on the allegations seven months ago. It would probably have actually made things easier for Harper if he had granted an inquiry now. The opposition will not let go until he does anyway. We will be treated to a useless counterpoint of opposition complaints and Harper replying that they should wait for the third party report. Without the Fifth Estate report and Schreiber recent affidavits nothing would have happened.
Schreiber is probably the big winner so far as he will no doubt not be deported to Germany!


NDP calls for full inquiry into Mulroney affair
Updated Sat. Nov. 10 2007 4:24 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

NDP Leader Jack Layton wants a full public inquiry into the allegations surrounding former prime minister Brian Mulroney and controversial businessman Karlheinz Schreiber.

Late Friday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced he would appoint an independent third party to review dealings between Mulroney and Schreiber.

"An independent third party is not going to be able to have the power of subpoena, he's not going to be able to drill down and get the truth," Layton told CTV Newsnet on Saturday.

"And right now, the allegations are swirling around in such a devastating way that it's affecting peoples' faith in our democratic system."

Harper said at Friday's news conference that members of the government shouldn't have any dealings with Mulroney until after the investigation is complete.

The latest developments came after Schreiber filed a court affidavit that implicated Mulroney in inappropriate business dealings while he was prime minister.

Mulroney, the Progressive Conservative prime minister of Canada between 1984 and 1993, said he would co-operate with any inquiry. He has denied any wrongdoing in the relationship between himself and Schreiber, a German-Canadian businessman whose extradition is being sought by the German government.

However, critics accuse Mulroney of not providing a full explanation of how he came to accept $300,000 in three cash payments from Schreiber, with the first payment of $100,000 coming mere weeks after he left the prime minister's office.

Harper said Friday the independent party will look into the seriousness of Schreiber's allegations.

Stalling?

Some critics have characterized Harper's call for an investigation as a delaying tactic. When new information about the two men's dealings was initially reported a week ago, Harper rejected calling an inquiry.

Harper said Friday that he was prompted to act because the latest allegations involve Mulroney's time as prime minister.

Layton said he thinks Harper is stalling.

"It's only a partial step and it really slows down the process of getting to the bottom of the matter," he said.

"Does anyone doubt that this independent third party ... that he's going to say, 'you better bring in a judge?'" Layton asked.

"I don't think so. That's why we might as well get on with it now."

Layton noted it took full inquiries to get to resolve the Maher Arar case and resolve issues related to the Air India investigation.

"The truth doesn't come out easily sometimes on these matters," he said.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion called Friday for an inquiry.

He said the affidavit leaves questions about when the prime minister and his cabinet may have become aware of the allegations, and why a Justice Canada investigation was stopped when Harper took office.

Liberal MP Mark Holland also criticized the prime minister for stalling, saying Harper's office received information on the "explosive" allegations seven months ago.

"It is beyond belief, one would have to completely suspend imagination, to think that this information wouldn't have been passed on to the prime minister when it is so significant," Holland said.

"This raises some very significant questions about what the prime minister knew and when he knew it," Holland said.

Holland went on to say that allowing the Harper government to appoint an investigator "isn't enough" because of Mulroney's close ties to Harper and the Conservative party.

"We need an independent judicial review; we need something that goes further. This is something that touches the highest office in the land," Holland said.


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Harper announces probe into Schreiber allegations

This is from ctv. I am a little bit surprised that Harper acted. I thought he would continue stonewalling but I guess the affidavit filed by Schreiber made it difficult to continue as if everything would go away in time as people lose interest in the affair. It will be interesting to see how independent the person appointed by Harper to look into the issue will be.

PM announces probe into Schreiber allegations
Updated Fri. Nov. 9 2007 6:45 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced a probe into allegations surrounding cash payments made to former prime minister Brian Mulroney and his actions while in office.

Harper, who had previously refused to investigate the matter, announced that he would be appointing an independent third party to look into business dealings between Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber.

The probe, he said, would decide whether action should be taken by the Prime Minister's Office.

"We can't ignore the allegation,'' he said at a press conference on Friday."We always have to protect the office of the prime minister.''

The review comes after an affidavit filed by Schreiber on Thursday implicated Mulroney in inappropriate business dealings while he was prime minister.

The Tories have been under pressure to investigate Mulroney's financial dealings following new details about $300,000 he allegedly received from Schreiber, who was tied to Airbus.

The affidavit also named Harper, claiming he and Mulroney met at Harrington Lake, Que., last summer to discuss the matter.

It is a claim Harper denied Friday.

"I was surprised to learn that my own name was mentioned in the affidavit," Harper said.

Harper said his family hosted the former prime minister but did not discuss Mulroney's dealings with Schreiber at the time.

Harper said the independent party will look into how serious the allegations made by Schreiber are, and whether -- if the allegations are true -- they had any impact on a settlement paid to Mulroney after he sued the government in the wake of past allegations.

Harper mentioned

In his sworn affidavit Thursday, Schreiber mentioned Harper for the first time, saying Mulroney suggested he write a letter for him to pass to Harper.

An excerpt from that affidavit reads:

"At the special request of Mr. Mulroney, I wrote a letter to him on July 20, 2006 suggesting to Mr. Mulroney that the public rhetoric regarding the sale of Airbus planes by Airbus Industries G.I.E. (the `Airbus Affair') and the conspiracy against me personally amounted to the largest political scandal in the history of Canada ...


"I wrote the July 20, 2006 letter at the request of Mr. Mulroney because he told me that he was going to meet with The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, the current Prime Minister of Canada, by the end of July, 2006 at Harrington Lake, and that he (Mr. Mulroney) was going to show that he and I were on good terms.''

Harper said on Friday that the probe was called not because his name was brought into question, but because for the first time there were real allegations, made under oath, suggesting inappropriate action by Mulroney while he was prime minister.

"That is a new development, and I think that we have to respond to this development," he said.

"I think it's interesting that Mr. Schreiber talked about a meeting where he was not in attendance."

Schreiber, a German-Canadian citizen, is currently in jail fighting extradition to Germany, where he would face charges of tax evasion, bribery and fraud.

Harper said the allegations stem from a personal "nasty litigation" between Mulroney and Schreiber, but as they stem from Mulroney's time in office they should be reviewed.

In 1997, Mulroney was paid $2.1 million in an out-of-court settlement after he sued the federal government.

The suit was over RCMP allegations in a letter that he was under investigation for a kickback scheme involving Air Canada's 1988 purchase of Airbus planes.

Schreiber is currently suing Mulroney for $300,000, an amount he says he paid Mulroney in hotel room dealings.

He also alleged that Mulroney's advisor Fred Doucet asked him to transfer funds to Mulroney's lawyer in Switzerland.

Harper said no Conservative member should have any dealings with Mulroney until after the inquiry is complete.

The Tories had been refusing to say whether any of their ministers have looked into the Airbus affair or cash payments made to Mulroney.

The Liberals say that by avoiding looking into the affair, Tories can claim ignorance on the file and avoid taking action against a former Conservative prime minister.

Harper said Friday the independent third party would "review what course of actions may be appropriate," and will recommend the most appropriate way to proceed.

He said he will name that person soon, likely next week.

'Delaying tactic'

Pat Martin, the NDP's privacy and ethics critic, said the announcement was made to buy time for the prime minister.

"Honestly, the public has demanded that we get to the bottom of this and not a delaying tactic of this independent third party," Marin said on CTV's Mike Duffy Live.

"Otherwise there will be a firestorm on the floor of the House of Commons on the first question period, and Harper needed something to be able to say."

The ex-prime minister has never been charged, and Schreiber's allegations have never been proven in court.

But Liberal MP Ralph Goodale said the allegations themselves have publicly smeared the office of prime minister.

"Those are issues that are profoundly troubling, and they go to the institution of the office of prime minister. And that really should be an office that is beyond question and above reproach," Liberal MP Ralph Goodale said on Mike Duffy Live.


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Mulroney-Schreiber affair threatens PM's credibility

I just wonder how long the Fifth Estate revelations will percolate through the press. Within a week perhaps it will all be forgotten unless important people take up the cudgel and I am not sure that is likely. Already there is absolutely nothing on the news about it today at least on CBC TV. I saw the 5th estate program. Schreiber is amazingly composed and quite amusing at times. Considering that he is facing extradition and jail in Germany he is amazingly calm and has a great sense of humour.

Mulroney-Schreiber affair threatens PM's credibility

After campaigning for restitution of Liberal sponsorship spending, Harper will be pressed to make his mentor repay libel award.

OTTAWA, November 5, 2007: The Mulroney-Schreiber Affair could undo an enormous amount of the work Stephen Harper has done to establish himself and his credibility.

CBC News reported last week that former prime minister Brian Mulroney allegedly tried to hide cash payments of $300,000 that he received from arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber, currently jailed in Toronto and facing extradition to Germany. The news program Fifth estate, broadcast an interview with Schreiber, who said Mulroney asked for a letter stating that "at no time did he ever solicit or receive" money from the German businessman.

Making matters worse are reports that Mulroney deliberately delayed reporting on the payments for tax purposes. Furthermore, reports that Schreiber made some of the cash payments in New York suggest Mulroney may have illegally brought the money into Canada from the US.

These reports fly in the face of the libel award Mulroney won in 1997 from the RCMP and the government. Under oath, Mulroney denied any dealings with Schreiber. He received a court-ordered government apology and a $2.1-million settlement. Now the opposition is calling, with some justification, for a public inquiry into the affair. The Harper government brands these calls as "political vendettas."

Mulroney's sworn statements about his association with Schreiber appear to have been proven false, however. This puts Harper, who has always championed government and political accountability, in a tough spot. After conducting a vigorous campaign for restitution of improperly-used Liberal sponsorship spending, he is in a poor position to argue that Brian Mulroney should not have to refund the $2.1 million awarded to him based on what increasingly appears to be perjury.

If, however, Harper is forced into an inquiry over Mulroney, it could kill the Conservative brand - again. Mulroney's unite-the-right politics of 25 years ago temporarily brought together western populists and Péquistes - before blowing up in a cataclysm that led directly to the formation of the Reform and Canadian Alliance parties and, ultimately, the end of the Progressive Conservative party, not to mention creating the Bloc Québéquois.

Despite some formidable political accomplishments, Mulroney became the most hated Canadian politician in a generation. With the publication of his memoirs and recent public appearances, he had been working to restore his image, with some success, until these recent revelations.

Harper has skillfully set many traps for his opponents, including bullying the Liberals into supporting the throne speech. Now he is caught in a trap of his own. If he calls an inquiry, as facts and precedent would appear to indicate he must, it could crucify Mulroney, his close political friend. In that scenario, Harper will take all the heat of guilt by association. If Harper stonewalls demands for an inquiry, he could lose the credibility he has worked so hard to build on the accountability file, while still suffering from his own close ties to both Mulroney and Mulroney's Quebec strategy.

Brian Mulroney's Greatest Achievement

This is from Rabble.
This is more about NAFTA than Mulroney! Cameron's criticism of NAFTA is the more interesting part. There is no mention of the deleterious effects of NAFTA on Mexico or even on the US itself. I just wonder if NAFTA had any positive effect on US manufacturing as far as jobs are concerned.

Brian Mulroney's greatest achievement



>by Duncan Cameron
September 12, 2007

For most of us the idea of reading Brian Mulroney's Memoirs: 1939-1993 is about as appealing as trying to relive, successively, the worst hangovers of your life. Imagine having to turn pages to find out how great it was for Canadians to welcome the GST, Meech Lake, Charlottetown, and the Free Trade Agreement.

In a misdirected desire to say something – anything – nice, commentators on his memoirs do try to make at least one positive reference to Brian Mulroney's record as Prime Minister. The usually astute Chantal Hebert mentions Free Trade favourably for instance, and she is not the only one who does so.

Just in case anyone takes this kind of claim seriously, a few remarks are in order.

First, Ronald Reagan – not Brian Mulroney – was the father of Free Trade. The Gipper even put it in his inaugural address. The best full account of the nasty FTA is in the marvelous Yankee Doodle Dandy by former Maclean's Washington bureau chief and perennial award winning feature journalist Marci McDonald. As we see, it obviously matters that it was an American idea.

Second, when a reserve currency country (the U.S. dollar is a world currency held around the world) signs a trade agreement giving both countries national treatment on investment, with a non-world currency country (that would be us), the country that issues the world currency in question cannot lose.

If Canadians want to buy a U.S. company, or a U.S. good, we have to earn U.S. currency to pay down the loan or pay in U.S. cash. When Americans want to gobble up Canadian assets or buy oil and gas no foreign currency earnings are needed. They use their own money.

As a result the growth in American foreign debt has been exponential. It is all denominated in American dollars, and they have Canadian goods, Canadian services, and Canadian companies to show for a part of it.

Third, when economists talk about "free" trade, they mean tariff free: no customs duty at the border on imports. In Canada-U.S. trade the foreign exchange rate is much more important to the economic health of Canada than the piddling tariff changes which have been introduced over ten years by the FTA.

We had virtually duty free access to the U.S. market (there was a one per cent average duty on Canadian exports and 85 percent of our goods went duty free to the U.S.) before we signed away our ability to set our own taxes on exports of natural gas and petroleum or anything else, to control the sale of our assets, or to manage our domestic economy in favour of Canadians not the absentee landlords. It was all in the name of supposed “Free Trade."

Twenty years later, the Americans have decided that their home security trumps our duty free access. So we get to pay for customs inspection of our goods by the U.S., then wait for lengthy security checks before bringing our stuff across the border.

The FTA came into effect on January 1, 1989. The Canadian manufacturing economy started tanking in March 1989. The exchange rate went up. Canada went into a recession that only ended with the world increase in the price of our natural resource exports. When the Bank of Canada drastically reduced interest rates, it provoked a steep fall in the value of the Canadian dollar – into the low 60 cent range.

The devaluation put some punch back into our national economy. If the currency falls by 20 percent, it is if a 20 percent tariff goes on imports, and a 20 percent tariff comes off exports, so devaluation is a form of protectionism which usually does benefit the country with the devalued currency, at the expense of its trading partners. But at the same time, the low dollar encouraged the world to buy up many of the assets we had that were worth selling.

Fourth, when one country owns one-half of the manufacturing sector of another, Free Trade does not work the way your American-authored economics textbook says it does. If the average cost of producing a specific good is lower in Chicago than the extra cost of producing it in Ontario and a U.S. multinational owns both operations (this is not mentioned in your textbook), it shuts down the Ontario operation and services the market from Chicago. This simple logic continues to devastate the Canadian manufacturing sector. The reason I’ve used Chicago in my illustration is because that was in the example given by Brian Mulroney opposing Free Trade with the U.S. as the winning candidate for the leadership of his party.

Fifth, under the FTA (described by Marci McDonald as primarily an energy deal) we, the world's largest per capita energy consumer, agreed to pool our energy resources with the U.S., which is world’s largest energy importer.

As a result, about 20 years later, we have cheaply sold off most of our easy-to-get and low production cost oil reserves and run our natural gas reserves down to less than a 10-year supply. Meanwhile, we are planning to import liquefied natural gas, even as we burn off natural gas to provide the U.S. with tar sands production and import more expensive foreign oil.

Smart, eh?

Sixth. Water, water everywhere. Or so many people thought when we signed a trade deal that everyone knew did not exclude water as a traded good. Now many people know better, and this week it a report from the Munk Institute confirmed that our water is the topic of secret discussions with the U.S.

A lot more can be said about the failure of Free Trade and the continued dangers of continental integration. But 20 years later, Brian Mulroney has not been given due recognition on one score.

Mulroney's greatest achievement was that despite election promises to the contrary, in 1993, the record of the Chrétien-Martin regimes on Free Trade was indistinguishable from Mulroney's own agenda

Mulroney ordered to pay 470,000 to Schreiber

One sometimes wonders about who drafts reports such as these. Certainly Schreiber did give Mulroney the 300 thousand but for what purpose may be moot. The fifth estate verified that money was paid. This is all tied up with the Airbus Scandal. The RCMP were investigation Mulroney but somehow this was leaked out and Mulroney sued and managed to make 2 million in an out of court settlement. Mulroney always seemed to me guilty of shady dealings with Schreiber but of course both are part of the elite. Schreiber is wanted in Germany on various charges but Mulroney is comfortably retired in Canada. See the Airbus Affair.


Court orders Mulroney to pay $470,000 to Schreiber
Last Updated: Friday, July 27, 2007 | 12:16 AM ET
CBC News
An Ontario court has ordered Brian Mulroney to pay $470,000 to German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber, who sued the former prime minister, alleging he didn't follow through on his business commitments.

The judgment was made automatically by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice after Mulroney failed to respond to the lawsuit.

Karlheinz Schreiber, seen in 2004, sued Brian Mulroney for $300,000 to recoup payments he says he made to the former prime minister.
(Aaron Harris/Canadian Press) The former prime minister's lawyers didn't file a defence because they believe the case should be argued in Quebec.

"The first I heard of it was when you notified me of it, and we're going to take immediate steps to have that judgment set aside," Mulroney's lawyer Kenneth Prehogan told the Canadian Press on Thursday.

"Mr. Mulroney has challenged the Ontario court's jurisdiction because the case has nothing to do with the province of Ontario."

Schreiber alleged that after the former prime minister retired from politics in 1993, he agreed to help Schreiber build a production facility for light armoured vehicles in Quebec, with a head office in Ottawa, and a pasta business in Ontario.



The lawsuit, filed in Ontario Superior Court, alleged Mulroney reneged on that agreement.

Schreiber alleged he gave Mulroney $300,000 in cash in 1993 and 1994 as an advance, but that he never received the services he paid for, according to a statement of claim.

The statement of claim alleges that Schreiber attempted, on numerous occasions, to outline what Mulroney owed him, "demanding the services to be performed by the defendant."

Schreiber allegedly made various attempts to collect his advance but Mulroney refused to pay back the money, the document claims.

Schreiber, who lives in Toronto and Ottawa, is currently fighting extradition to Germany on charges of bribery, fraud and tax evasion.

With files from the Canadian Press