Since When Does a Prime Minister Lobby for a Lobbyist?

Karlheinz Schreiber may be a sideshow in the financial affairs of Brian Mulroney. It was always thought that Schreiber received the $20-million in Schmiergelder, or grease (bribe) money, paid out by Airbus Industries in the course of the Air Canada deal. Schreiber says that money went, instead, to GCI (Government Consultants International), a lobby firm owned by Mulroney croney, the late Frank Moores.

GCI is gone and Frank Moores is dead so getting to the bottom of this is going to be more difficult than it otherwise might. That said, the records of Air Canada and its board during the Mulroney years do exist and might shed a lot of light on what happened.

Why did Mulroney sack some 15-Air Canada directors and why did he include among the replacements he appointed Frank Moores? Why did Frank Moores hurriedly resign this directorship? Why did Moores repeatedly deny claims that he and GCI acted for Airbus on the sale (although correspondence has emerged plainly showing just that)? Why did Moores run off in lockstep with Mulroney to make his own "voluntary disclosure" to Revenue Canada when Schreiber's Swiss bank records became public?

One thing, however, stands out. It's been reported that Mulroney repeatedly pressured the Air Canada board to pay GCI a $5-million fee of some sort related to the Airbus purchase. Did Mulroney, while prime minister, really lobby for the lobbyist and, if so, why and what did he get out of it? Why would Air Canada pay a fee to GCI if it was acting as lobbyist for Airbus? Did any money pass from Air Canada to GCI or Frank Moores and, if so, how much and for what?

Norman Spector did ponder what the Commons ethics committee might have learned had it held the current enquiry back in 2002 while Moores was still alive. It's too bad he was never asked to expand on that thought.