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.
11:50 a.m.
As an Individual
Number one, I told the committee—and you saw it in the House—that the letter you are referring to I wrote only at the request, as I was told, of Mr. Mulroney for his meeting with Mr. Harper. That's number one.
Number two, yes, I had all of these allegations at the time when the Liberals were still in power. My point is, sir—and I apologize, I have the impression that you miss it all the time—that my expectations were not of the Liberals at that time, because I was told they were the evil responsible for the whole mess, including Bear Head. My expectations started when the Conservative government came back to power—my party. Are you with me?
I expected what we asked 12 years for: now they are going to hound the Liberals down the street for the next five years and bring to light this horrible vendetta against Mr. Mulroney and me. What did I find? They were the ones running away, scared like hell. All the lies that he wanted to support it, all of this came up later, after 2006.
Do you understand what I'm talking about?
Thank you.
December 6th, 2007 / 11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Herr Schreiber, I would like to remind you that the party you referred to was the Progressive Conservatives; this is the Conservative Party.
11:50 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
I'd like to get some timeline on the transaction. I want to understand this.
You gave Mr. Mulroney the cash in installments. When did you first expect to receive services? I'm interested in the dates you actually expected to start receiving specific services from Mr. Mulroney.
11:55 a.m.
As an Individual
After the election, especially when Kim Campbell would form the next majority Conservative government in Canada.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
You cut off the installments at one point, according to last week's testimony, because you didn't receive services for the payments you had already provided.
Is it your testimony, sir, that Mr. Mulroney provided no services to you whatsoever?
11:55 a.m.
As an Individual
Not to my knowledge. If he has done secret service I don't know about.... I don't know.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
You must have trusted Mr. Mulroney quite a bit to have given him the second $100,000 and the third $100,000 before he provided you even one hour's worth of service. Why did you give him three-fifths of what you had planned to pay in total before seeing even an hour's worth of work, let alone any results? I don't understand that.
I know that you gave us some testimony on this, but I just need you to elaborate on that.
11:55 a.m.
As an Individual
Look, I think I was pretty right in my expectations when you see what Mr. Mulroney is doing today and what he's living from and what his role is in international business as a lobbyist. I still thought there might be something coming up that we could do together. It's mere business. I was very much interested.
I think he has done quite successful jobs for the companies he's been working for in the meantime—unfortunately, not for me.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Mr. Schreiber, you paid Mr. Mulroney cash. Canadians want to know why you did this. You told us last Thursday it was because cash was available. On Tuesday you indicated the money was your money.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Can you take a few minutes to tell us about the source of this cash?
11:55 a.m.
As an Individual
The cash, as I said earlier, was from the accounts where money went to GCI. Since the project collapsed, from the $4 million, from Thyssen, for my share I kept $500,000 as a reserve in case I could do something with the project in the future. This was the main reason Mr. Mulroney.... As I said earlier, I don't know why people have problems, that one can have more than one reason to give something. One was the plan and the second was the reunification, so it was an expectation for other business. It's as simple as that.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
But we're dealing with huge amounts of cash. Was dealing in large quantities of cash a regular business practice for you?
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Mr. Schreiber, were you attempting to avoid a paper trail by using cash?
11:55 a.m.
As an Individual
At least, I am not interested when I do something from my side, where I was not clear where it should go...as I said earlier to your colleagues here. I expected that Mr. Mulroney would tell me what company or what law firm, or whatever, and that was not clear on the 23rd of June.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
But were you attempting to avoid a paper trail, or were you hoping to have Mr. Mulroney avoid some sort of scrutiny?
11:55 a.m.
As an Individual
To be quite frank, I wouldn't care. People who know me in the meantime around the world, they know I don't care about these things.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Tell us a little bit about the bank account with the code name Britan.
