Many critics have zeroed in on the narrow terms of the Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry but given the possibility of a fishing expedition and the high cost of an open-ended inquiry one can at least understand the reasons behind the decision to narrow the reference. However, terms also allow closed sessions. This has been the undoing of the Iacobucci inquiry. An inquiry is to satisfy the public that justice is done but if the inquiry goes on behind closed doors and with little disclosure of evidence the inquiry can be nothing than a show inquiry for the most part. In the Iacobucci case at least there is the fig leaf of national security to use as a rationale for holding closed sessions but in the Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry any move to close the inquiry to the public would immediately arouse suspicions of a coverup.
This snippet is from the Canadian press:
Non-partisan experts in public inquiries say closing the door on hearings at any point tends to undermine the exercise.
"The rationale for a pubic inquiry is to restore confidence in the system - that justice has been done and wrong has been found or not found in a public fashion," said Peter Russell, a retired political scientist who served as the research director to the 1980s McDonald commission into RCMP wrongdoing in the fight against Quebec separatism.
Paul Copeland, the lawyer for Abdullah Almalki at the Iacobucci inquiry, warned against another such inquiry in the Mulroney affair.
"As long as you don't want the public to know anything, it's a perfect model," he said.
And Norman Spector, Mulroney's one-time chief of staff, called Johnston's closed-door options "outrageous."
Showing posts with label Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Mulroney inquiry is worth the price
This is from the Star. We don't have even the terms of reference yet or the costs so it is hard to see how we can know whether it is worth the price. I do think we should have an inquiry nevertheless and it is heartening to see at least one editorialist giving us reasons why we should still have an inquiry. I fear though that Johnson's terms of reference will be to dump the inquiry idea altogether.
Mulroney inquiry is worth the price
Dec 22, 2007 04:30 AM
Most Canadians feel they have heard enough about former prime minister Brian Mulroney's relationship with German Canadian lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber, and don't favour a costly public inquiry into the cash-stuffed envelopes affair. Although a recent poll found that only 21 per cent of Canadians believe what Mulroney told the Commons ethics committee, 52 per cent said they see little reason to conduct a thorough probe of events that happened nearly 15 years ago.
Many of those opposed to an official inquiry suggest taxpayers should be spared the cost of a public inquiry, which could well run into millions of dollars. They also think it is pointless to investigate dealings that took place so long ago and say Ottawa should be more focused on today's issues, such as global warming, the conflict in Afghanistan or the state of the economy.
So why hold the inquiry at all?
There are compelling reasons for such a probe, including the importance and value of the truth and integrity to our democratic institutions. Effective democracy demands that the public interest must always take precedence over the private or personal interests of those who enjoy the power and privilege of governing.
If there is any question of that principle being abused, as there was, for example, in the Liberal sponsorship scandal, the only way to restore the public's faith in our system of representative government is to cast a spotlight on the officials in question in order exonerate them or expose their wrongdoing. It is the ultimate form of accountability.
Although he initially opposed the idea of a probe into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair, Prime Minister Stephen Harper ultimately relented under public pressure and called for an official probe. The inquiry will start after University of Waterloo president David Johnston provides advice on the possible terms of reference for such a probe. Johnston is to give his report to Harper by Jan. 11.
While a government of one stripe may find it advantageous to establish an inquiry into the actions of a former government of a different stripe, Harper is addressing a controversy involving his own party, just as former prime minister Paul Martin did when he threw open the windows on the sponsorship scandal. That cost Martin the next election, but no one could accuse him of trying to hide the truth. And that was how public confidence in the system was strengthened.
To claim, as some do, that the Schreiber-Mulroney affair is ancient history, and therefore not worth the expense of an inquiry, is to imply that there is some kind of magic dividing point on the time line of history, before which the truth does not matter.
Canadians are entitled to know whether a former prime minister broke faith with the people who put their trust in him, even if it was nearly 15 years ago. And given the circumstances of his dealing with Schreiber – envelopes stuffed with $1,000 bills exchanged in hotel rooms and then squirrelled away in safety deposit boxes and safes with no taxes paid for several years – Mulroney should have the right to explain himself before a full-blown inquiry.
And yes the inquiry will cost money. But keeping our democracy healthy is not something that can be had for free.
Canadians accept all kinds of costly safeguards to ensure the system works as effectively as it can. The auditor general, for example, provides an effective check on how our tax dollars are spent. The ethics commissioner is the first line of defence against abuse of the public trust. And public inquiries are needed at times to consider whether or not politicians and bureaucrats have abused their power.
Mulroney's dealings with Schreiber demand such a review.
Mulroney inquiry is worth the price
Dec 22, 2007 04:30 AM
Most Canadians feel they have heard enough about former prime minister Brian Mulroney's relationship with German Canadian lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber, and don't favour a costly public inquiry into the cash-stuffed envelopes affair. Although a recent poll found that only 21 per cent of Canadians believe what Mulroney told the Commons ethics committee, 52 per cent said they see little reason to conduct a thorough probe of events that happened nearly 15 years ago.
Many of those opposed to an official inquiry suggest taxpayers should be spared the cost of a public inquiry, which could well run into millions of dollars. They also think it is pointless to investigate dealings that took place so long ago and say Ottawa should be more focused on today's issues, such as global warming, the conflict in Afghanistan or the state of the economy.
So why hold the inquiry at all?
There are compelling reasons for such a probe, including the importance and value of the truth and integrity to our democratic institutions. Effective democracy demands that the public interest must always take precedence over the private or personal interests of those who enjoy the power and privilege of governing.
If there is any question of that principle being abused, as there was, for example, in the Liberal sponsorship scandal, the only way to restore the public's faith in our system of representative government is to cast a spotlight on the officials in question in order exonerate them or expose their wrongdoing. It is the ultimate form of accountability.
Although he initially opposed the idea of a probe into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair, Prime Minister Stephen Harper ultimately relented under public pressure and called for an official probe. The inquiry will start after University of Waterloo president David Johnston provides advice on the possible terms of reference for such a probe. Johnston is to give his report to Harper by Jan. 11.
While a government of one stripe may find it advantageous to establish an inquiry into the actions of a former government of a different stripe, Harper is addressing a controversy involving his own party, just as former prime minister Paul Martin did when he threw open the windows on the sponsorship scandal. That cost Martin the next election, but no one could accuse him of trying to hide the truth. And that was how public confidence in the system was strengthened.
To claim, as some do, that the Schreiber-Mulroney affair is ancient history, and therefore not worth the expense of an inquiry, is to imply that there is some kind of magic dividing point on the time line of history, before which the truth does not matter.
Canadians are entitled to know whether a former prime minister broke faith with the people who put their trust in him, even if it was nearly 15 years ago. And given the circumstances of his dealing with Schreiber – envelopes stuffed with $1,000 bills exchanged in hotel rooms and then squirrelled away in safety deposit boxes and safes with no taxes paid for several years – Mulroney should have the right to explain himself before a full-blown inquiry.
And yes the inquiry will cost money. But keeping our democracy healthy is not something that can be had for free.
Canadians accept all kinds of costly safeguards to ensure the system works as effectively as it can. The auditor general, for example, provides an effective check on how our tax dollars are spent. The ethics commissioner is the first line of defence against abuse of the public trust. And public inquiries are needed at times to consider whether or not politicians and bureaucrats have abused their power.
Mulroney's dealings with Schreiber demand such a review.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Conflict allegations surface in Mulroney-Schreiber inquest
Johnston apparently was also president of McGill University when the chair of the board was a lawyer who negotiated the settlement between the government and Mulroney.
Although Johnston probably will be impartial connections such as this are a bit problematic since he must be seen to be impartial. Perhaps the Canadian elite is so cosy and connected that it is impossible to choose someone not connected to them!
Conflict allegations surface in Mulroney-Schreiber inquest
Jack Aubry
CanWest News Service
Thursday, November 15, 2007
OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper's inquiry into former prime minister Brian Mulroney's dealings with jailed businessman Karlheinz Schreiber was hit with allegations of potential conflict of interest Wednesday when the man who will set the terms of reference was revealed to have been a former Mulroney appointee.
David Johnston, who once reported to Mulroney when he was chairman of the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy, was named by Harper to report by early next year on the scope of the public inquiry.
And in the Commons, the opposition charged that Justice Minister Rob Nicholson should withdraw from Schreiber's extradition case because his close connections with Mulroney place him in a conflict of interest.
Although Johnston probably will be impartial connections such as this are a bit problematic since he must be seen to be impartial. Perhaps the Canadian elite is so cosy and connected that it is impossible to choose someone not connected to them!
Conflict allegations surface in Mulroney-Schreiber inquest
Jack Aubry
CanWest News Service
Thursday, November 15, 2007
OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper's inquiry into former prime minister Brian Mulroney's dealings with jailed businessman Karlheinz Schreiber was hit with allegations of potential conflict of interest Wednesday when the man who will set the terms of reference was revealed to have been a former Mulroney appointee.
David Johnston, who once reported to Mulroney when he was chairman of the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy, was named by Harper to report by early next year on the scope of the public inquiry.
And in the Commons, the opposition charged that Justice Minister Rob Nicholson should withdraw from Schreiber's extradition case because his close connections with Mulroney place him in a conflict of interest.
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