Evidence of meeting #10 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was mulroney.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
So the agreement you had with that law office, that partnership agreement that allowed you to have your independent international consulting business--would that still be in existence?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
So would we be able to get a copy of that to see what the agreement was?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Were you expecting to make money, as an individual, on your international consulting business?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
From my perspective, we need some sense of proof that you were creating a legitimate second business for yourself, being a lawyer for the law firm plus this consulting business. I happen to be familiar with records-of-management issues and that you can get rid of them after seven years and so on. Do you have paper proof that you had a legitimate international consulting business on the side of your legal business? Can you provide this committee with anything?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Well, yes.... Have you done other business under that umbrella?
12:30 p.m.
P.C., As an Individual
No, I have a legitimate international consulting business.
12:30 p.m.
P.C., As an Individual
Yes, of course.
I have indicated to all the members of the committee, this is the only transaction. That's why I'm here. To explain, to indicate to you what had happened, and also to acknowledge my error. This was the only transaction of this nature I've ever been involved with. Everything else, both with my law firm—which is one of the great law firms in Canadian history and has been around for 135 years—and with my consulting business, has been done in a perfectly—
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
And it's legally registered to pay PST, GST, all that stuff?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
So other than these dealings with Mr. Schreiber, everything else has a record we can look at.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Okay.
I've seen you on television, Mr. Prime Minister, talking about a public inquiry, which this government has committed to. Mr. Schreiber wants one. You want one. I'm not sure I want one. But what are your expectations from the public inquiry, and why are you asking for it?
12:30 p.m.
P.C., As an Individual
Let's put that, perhaps, in a different tense.
On November 7, Mr. Schreiber filed an affidavit, which provoked the feeding frenzy he wanted. It resulted in a “get out of jail” card and the creation of this committee, before whose members he appeared four or five times.
Provisions of the affidavit were chosen to provoke public concern and alarm, because he invoked the name of the present Prime Minister and a former Prime Minister and suggested impropriety at a given point in time and then made other statements in the affidavit as well that would raise legitimate matters of public concern. All hell broke loose, with everybody running around asking for a public inquiry. Statements were made that were so outrageous that quite frankly I was forced to sue my new friend, Mr. Thibault, for libel.
So at that time, what am I supposed to do? I'm sitting at home with my wife and my family. Here we go again, with a series of false accusations designed to destroy my reputation and drag me through the mud.
So as a result of that, I called to indicate my innocence...total innocence. I asked for a royal commission of inquiry into this. But when you look at what has happened now, the evidence that you have.... Let me just close on this, sir.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative