Evidence of meeting #7 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 letter.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:20 a.m.
As an Individual
Just because of the way I took some money out from over there.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
Robert Thibault Liberal West Nova, NS
Is it fair to say, I think from what you've said, that the $500,000 was ultimately from success fees from Thyssen, which was in the amount of $4 million?
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
Robert Thibault Liberal West Nova, NS
And if you hadn't reached an agreement with the Mulroney government, you would never have received that $4 million?
11:20 a.m.
As an Individual
No. But in fairness, this is to say that it can be proven easily by Revenue Canada that for all the work GCI did during eight years for Thyssen as a lobbyist, they never sent a bill to Germany, with the exception of one for some disbursements.
In other words, it was all based on success. This agreement that was finally reached and signed with the Government of Nova Scotia, and as well in Ottawa here with the department of defence, and others, like ACOA--all this was part of, what can I say, an inquiry from the German department of revenue when they audited the books from Thyssen. In the files somewhere are the documents from the meeting where it very clearly says Mr. Schreiber had an agreement with Thyssen to establish this company in Canada with the help of others. It is this understanding that one of the shareholders involved in this whole thing through IAL is Mr. Frank Moores, who was going to disburse the money in Canada. Its publicly known by the German authorities. There was nothing to hide on my side.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
Robert Thibault Liberal West Nova, NS
But the question here is that you transferred from IAL some money to Frankfurt. Frankfurt was the account from which Moores and his associates would have ultimately been paid.
11:20 a.m.
As an Individual
To be correct, Mr. Thibault, I think I never transferred any money from IAL to that account. This is another lie in the whole thing--that IAL belongs to Schreiber, which is not true. The money was transferred by Mr. Pelossi to my account, which I controlled because nobody should know who finally gets the money.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Robert Thibault Liberal West Nova, NS
But ultimately the money was transferred to the Frankfurt account.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Robert Thibault Liberal West Nova, NS
And from the Frankfurt account, $500,000 was transferred to the Britan account.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
11:25 a.m.
As an Individual
Yes, it was the rest, which had been left for the project from that.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Robert Thibault Liberal West Nova, NS
That's not money that was part of the payment to Frank Moores and his associates.
11:25 a.m.
As an Individual
Normally, if the project would not have been cancelled or crashed, I would have paid that money to GCI.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Robert Thibault Liberal West Nova, NS
They would have received that as part of...but they didn't. The money went to Mr. Mulroney.
11:25 a.m.
As an Individual
I kept it because there was nothing delivered from GCI. This is why Frank Moores and the other people were mad at Mulroney.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Robert Thibault Liberal West Nova, NS
Just to be certain, again to reiterate for the record, the existence of the $4 million was due to an understanding, a memorandum of agreement, signed with the Province of Nova Scotia and with the Government of Canada.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Robert Thibault Liberal West Nova, NS
In the last minute, why did you want this public inquiry? And who do you think would be concerned if a public inquiry was called?
11:25 a.m.
As an Individual
I thought that everything was simple and proper in the whole case. Later I became suspicious. When I started my lawsuits in order to find out the truth, I got blocked throughout the time, until today.
I thought there would be two ways. One is a court room; the other one is a public inquiry. The public inquiry is even better when people have to testify under oath and know other people are around who can identify when you commit perjury. Because this case is not a case with documents and agreements in piles. Here you have to believe quite a few witnesses. That's the main thing in this business, in that world.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
