Evidence of meeting #14 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.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
When that happened in November of 1995, you were on the case, and you spent time taking care of your client's interests. It seems incredible to me, Mr. Lavoie--and you're the one who put credibility into issue by calling Mr. Schreiber the biggest...liar the world has ever seen--
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
You retract it, but you said it.
Don't cut into my time, please.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Well, we're on the trail of maybe the second biggest liar around, and that's not you. But, finally, Mr. Chairman--
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I would just ask members to be judicious in their language. Let's be careful here.
Mr. Wallace, please.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate a few more minutes to finish up some of my questioning I was leading to. This committee is charged with looking at any new information that might not have been known at the time of the Airbus settlement.
Based on the information you have, and know, sir, is there any new information this committee does not know or did not know at the time of the settlement that we should know today? Do you have anything to add in terms of what that information might be today?
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
So your testimony today regarding the letter—which is really what started the lawsuit, which then finished with the settlement—is that the letter didn't just suddenly accuse the former Prime Minister of maybe being involved, but identified him as doing criminal activity.
Is that correct?
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I'm just asking this in your view, but the settlement that was created was because the letter had identified the former Prime Minister as in fact involved in criminal activity, and that is why the payment was done.
Would that be your view?
4:10 p.m.
As an Individual
When you're talking about the payment, are you referring to the $2.1 million?
4:10 p.m.
As an Individual
The $2.1 million was an adjudicated amount of money through an arbitration process to reimburse his legal and public relations costs. He was never paid damages. This has to be understood.
Number two, the facts, as they were stated in the letters, were completely wrong. They never had any evidence to back these up, and they still don't. The minute the Attorney General of Switzerland wrote that there never was a bank account at the Swiss Bank Corporation, or anywhere else in Switzerland, for Brian Mulroney, the whole thing became a horrendous libel—which it was.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
At our last meeting we had the former minister of justice and attorney general, the Honourable Mr. Rock, here, who speculated that if he had known about the agreement between Schreiber and Mulroney—which had nothing to do with Airbus, as both parties admit—that may have had something to do with the level of the settlement. He would not admit there still would have been a settlement, but it may have affected its amount.
Would you also like to speculate, since you were representing the other side, whether that would have had an influence or not?
4:10 p.m.
As an Individual
I don't have the competence of Allan Rock, who is a well-known top-gun litigator in Ontario.
4:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Thank you, Thomas.
The reality is I have a problem with the following reasoning. They wrote a letter to a foreign government that Brian Mulroney had received a $5 million kickback from the sale of planes and helicopters and as part of Project Bear Head. They said he received $5 million while in office, from a bank account in Liechtenstein to a bank account that never existed in Switzerland. They wrote that; they sent it over there, and 25 members of the board received it. It leaked to the media, first to l'Agence France-Presse in Switzerland, and then it went the rounds, and we don't know where it ended up, but it did appear in the Financial Post.
Then you found out that indeed after he left office he received $300,000 to do work for the same person, Karlheinz Schreiber. So you then say, if I had known that, if I had known about the $300,000, God, it would have been great, because I would have been able to keep torturing him for a few more years.
I have a serious problem with that, because the libel was horrendous. What they wrote in the letter was just unbelievable, and they had to draft it seven times for it to reach a level strong enough for the Swiss to act on it.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
When you said they had to draft it seven times, who are you referring to?
