Information & Ethics Committee on Dec. 13th, 2007

[Brian Mulroney]

They didn't go through the law firm because before joining the law firm I negotiated a special provision in my partnership agreement with the law firm that allowed me to specifically deal with this kind of matter in the manner in which I did. It was an exception, a single exception of the partnership rule.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you.

We have a lot of questions, and we don't want to have call you back 10 or 15 times, so I would appreciate brevity.

You were working for Thyssen internationally. Did you give written reports to Thyssen or Mr. Schreiber on the work that you did through those years?

[Brian Mulroney]

Not in written reports. I reported to Mr. Schreiber, yes.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Did you make notes of your progress?

[Brian Mulroney]

Yes indeed.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Can you provide those to the committee?

[Brian Mulroney]

I can't provide them to the committee today. That was some 14 or 15 years ago. I reported, for example, in great detail for almost an hour in the presence of another person to Mr. Schreiber in New York City in the Pierre Hotel at the end of 1994 about my visits to China, Russia, and France, for example. I referred in particular to the summer of 1994, when my family and I were invited by President Yeltsin to Russia. We went there, and I thought it was an excellent opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Thibault, I'm going to add another minute or so to your time.

Mr. Mulroney, the members will maybe ask more detailed questions about the nature of the report, but I think that at this point what the member is after is whether you have written documents and whether the committee can have copies of those documents.

[Brian Mulroney]

Any documents I have, I'll be happy to share with members of the committee.

But perhaps my honourable friend would be interested in me concluding simply this point, because he was asking me about the reporting process and what I might have said.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Sir, if you prefer to make more full comments on some straightforward questions, I'm going to give you an opportunity to make a statement without being in the middle of the member's time.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, you showed great leniency with Mr. Schreiber in allowing him to elaborate on statements and meander on into dead ends all over the place. I think that if the witness chooses to provide explanations in his answers, he should be given that latitude. We certainly gave it to Mr. Schreiber. In the interest of fairness, I believe the witness should be allowed to complete his statements.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I think the point is that if the flow of the member's questions is going to be interrupted by statements, I want the witness to be--

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

My point, on the point of order, is that if he is speaking relative to the question that's being asked, he should be able to answer. He should be permitted the time to answer the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I agree, and I think the question was whether you have notes and whether we can have them. That was the question. But Mr. Mulroney--

[Brian Mulroney]

Mr. Chairman, the question was did I report to Mr. Schreiber, and I said yes, I did.

I'll be very brief on this, but just to give you an idea of it, I reported to him in New York very fully, for over an hour, on the contacts I had made, one of which involved a visit with President Yeltsin. I put forward, on a social, personal occasion, in discussion with President Yeltsin, knowing their requirements for peacekeeping vehicles and their own problems in Chechnya and elsewhere, whether they would be interested in discussing this with me and perhaps moving the file along. President Yeltsin told me that he knew the company. He thought highly of it. And I said, “Well, in that case, do you think we can take the next step together?”, which in my mind was to the P5. And he said, “Brian, I'd love to, but I have a problem. I'd love to get some of these.” I asked, “What's the problem?”. He said, “We're broke. We have no money.” So as a result of that, I kind of moved on. I looked for another prospect.

Obviously, this was the kind of consultation I was doing around the world with President Mitterrand, with the Chinese leadership, with leaders of the United States government, trying to promote the international dimension of the mandate I had been given.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

So we don't get into this problem, I certainly want to make sure that you have all the time you need to elaborate on or amplify matters that are generally touched on in questions. I'll interrupt the proceedings at the end of anybody's question slot to allow you to make such statements so that the record is clear and not ambiguous, maybe, in an answer to a very brief question.

Mr. Thibault, you have five minutes remaining.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

When you received the money at the Hotel Pierre in New York, did you bring that money back into Canada?

[Brian Mulroney]

No, I did not.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Did you deposit it in the United States?

[Brian Mulroney]

Yes, I did.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

In your deposition on the lawsuit against the Government of Canada, in answer to question 276 on page 98, you stated, “I haven't got a bank account anywhere in the world, except Montreal, and never have.” How can you explain that statement?

[Brian Mulroney]

It was a safety deposit box.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

It wasn't an account. Thank you.

Mr. Mulroney, the allegation or the suggestion of Karlheinz Schreiber is that on October 17, 1999, your counsel approached Mr. Schreiber's lawyer seeking an affidavit or declaration. Your counsel requested that Mr. Schreiber produce an affidavit indicating that at no time did you, Mr. Mulroney, solicit or receive money from Mr. Schreiber. Is that correct?

[Brian Mulroney]

What is correct is that there was a discussion, as I understand it, between counsel. And on January 26, 2000—and Mr. Chairman, I'll be happy to provide this to your secretariat—Mr. Schreiber's lawyer in Edmonton wrote to the lawyer in Toronto and said: “...received a call from Mr. Mulroney who advised that he had instructed Mr. Tremblay”--my lawyer--“to issue a letter to CBC's Fifth Estate indicating that if there was the slightest indication that Mr. Schreiber, Mr. Moores and Brian Mulroney were involved in any way...then there would be terrible consequences (I assumed that to mean a lawsuit).”

The only memorialization that was being sought was that, as Mr. Schreiber has now told you, there was no--

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

The question, Mr. Mulroney, with respect, is did your counsel contact Mr. Schreiber's Edmonton lawyer on October 17, 1999?