My E-Mail to the Prime Minister of Canada's New Government

The whole Mulroney/Schreiber controversy just won't die. Wouldn't it be great if our current Conservative prime minister took a few, simple steps to put the whole thing to bed? I think so. That's why I sent the following e-mail to Mr. Harper:

Dear Prime Minister Harper:

The Airbus affair simply won't go away. In persuading the Chretien government to settle by paying Mr. Mulroney $2-million of taxpayer funds, Mr. Mulroney gave sworn evidence that he had never had any business dealings with Mr. Schreiber.

After CBC's Fifth Estate obtained Mr. Schreiber's Swiss bank accounts showing a trail of funds from Airbus to Schreiber and, hence, on to Mr. Mulroney, your Conservative predecessor changed his account and said he had received that money as a retrainer for providing legal services to Mr. Schreiber. It appears that, at the same time as the payments were exposed, Mr. Mulroney also made a voluntary disclosure to Revenue Canada of certain unreported income.

The documents alone raise a strong suspicion that your Conservative predecessor misled federal government lawyers in compelling a settlement of his defamation claim. Particularly as Mr. Mulroney was a Conservative prime minister and is linked to Canada's New Government, you should be intent on obtaining clarification that exonerates Mr. Mulroney.

Sir, if these monies were indeed given to Mr. Mulroney as a legal retainer could you ask his firm to produce copies of its trust ledger confirming receipt and deposit of these funds? I'm sure Mr. Schreiber would agree to relinquish his privilege on this matter. Could you also have Mr. Mulroney's then firm furnish a copy of their accounts to Mr. Schreiber pursuant to which these monies would have been withdrawn from the firm's trust account?

Mr. Harper, lawyers are under strict obligations as to handling retainers that leave a clear paper trail. You may be aware that, until recently, Mr. Schreiber publicly stated that your Conservative predecessor rendered no legal services to him in consideration for these payments. Mr. Schreiber also described the original source of these payments, the Airbus monies, as "schmiergelder" or grease money, a bribery fund in connection with the Air Canada purchase of Airbus jetliners.

This whole business has a terrible smell, Mr. Prime Minister, and I know that Canada's New Government has no time for political chicanery. Would you therefore please get to the bottom of this?

Regards


Note - I will of course promptly post the unedited response I receive from the Prime Minister. Once Mr. Schreiber is sent back to Germany this will all probably die on the vine. If you want these loose threads tied up, the dangling questions answered, write Mr. Harper. Or, if you like, you can copy the message above, add your name to it and e-mail it to "pm@pm.gc.ca" Then we could all share our responses.

There is every reason to believe that Mr. Schreiber is a dodgy sort of wheeler-dealer. He is a wanted man in Germany. Yet his allegations have been troubling, a blight on Mr. Mulroney's good name. Surely this controversy can all be cleared up by the production of just a handful of documents that will corroborate Mr. Mulroney and vindicate him of any suggestions that he received tainted money from Mr. Schreiber. Then we could all just forget about this unhappiness.