Airbus - the Tory Scandal That Won't Die

With all eyes on Stephen Harper's weird writhing, it's not surprising that there's not much attention on Brian Mulroney and the Airbus scandal. And yet, CBC has come up with yet another startling revelation. It now seems that Mulroney aide Fred Doucet might have been lying when he appeared before the Commons ethics committee.

Here's what Doucet stated under oath on 28 February this year: “I want to say I have no knowledge at all about anything involving Airbus.”

According to the CBC, that's simply not true:

"...a CBC News investigation has learned that on the same day Mulroney received his first envelope of cash from German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber at a hotel in Mirabel airport, Doucet, who had arranged the meeting between the two men, received a fax from Air Canada outlining the delivery schedule of Airbus airplanes to Air Canada.
The Aug. 27, 1993, fax from Air Canada’s manager of investor relations, Denis Biro, itemized the delivery of 34 Airbus planes between 1990 and 1993.

That was important to Doucet because he was interested in determining how much money was left in the secret 1988 deal between Airbus Industrie and a Liechtenstein shell company, International Aircraft Leasing, or IAL.

The fax and other documents that Schreiber has provided to CBC News and the upcoming Oliphant Commission looking into the financial dealings between Schreiber and Mulroney appear to contradict Doucet's testimony before the ethics committee.

In fact, letters and correspondence among Schreiber, Doucet, and lobbyist and former Newfoundland premier Frank Moores reveal that Doucet was involved in an in-depth effort to determine how much money was available from the Airbus deal.

Their concerns first surfaced when Moores, owner of Government Consultants International (GCI), sent a handwritten fax to Schreiber on March 16, 1992, explaining why the commissions weren't going to be as large as they'd thought.

A week later, Doucet wrote a letter to Schreiber saying that Moores was not calling him back. “I do not want to bother you with the matter of The Birds,” Doucet wrote. “As I recall, you felt that by now I would have heard from F.M. I have not heard from him.”

After receiving the Aug. 27, 1993, fax from Air Canada's Biro, Doucet wrote a memo to Schreiber. “Mr. Biro has confirmed that 34 Airbus have been purchased and delivered to Air Canada according to the enclosed schedule,” he wrote. “I sincerely hope that this evidence, many times stated before, is emphatically and categorically related to F.M. [Frank Moores].”

In a letter to Schreiber on April 28, 1994, Doucet reported on his assignment to find out how many Airbus planes were bought and fully paid for by Air Canada.

“I truly hope this removes the confusion. In fact, it’s even better than I had hoped because the total sale was 34, not 32,” Doucet wrote. “For me, settling this matter is so very important for reasons I will tell you about in person.”

Piece by piece the truth behind the Airbus scheme is coming out. It's unfortunate that Frank Moores is dead. There are so many questions he ought to be answering. But what about Mulroney's key aide, Fred Doucet? What were his "so very important" concerns about Airbus, why wouldn't he outline them in writing, why did he testify under oath that he knew nothing, zip, nada about the whole Airbus business?