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.
Liberal
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
I have a question for Mr. Lavoie. When you look to see who benefits from the crime, you take into account the fact the letter of request to the Swiss government was leaked.
When you look at who benefited from the crime, you see that those who really had an interest in that letter being made public were the people around Brian Mulroney, because it brought the investigation to a halt and enabled him to receive $2.1 million, incidentally.
Do you know the name of the person who disclosed that letter?
As an Individual
I don't have the slightest idea. I'd also like to clarify one point. The out-of-court settlement reached in January 1997 didn't put an end to the investigation. There was a specific clause in the agreement stating that the investigation was to continue.
I don't have the slightest idea where the leak came from. There was more than one leak; there were roughly five.
Liberal
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
I'm talking about the leak in the Financial Post, the first.
As an Individual
That wasn't the first, by the way. Pardon me. I'm telling you that in passing.
Liberal
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
So tell me what the first leak was. Oh yes, it was in the Der Spiegel.
As an Individual
No, the Agence France-Presse, from Switzerland. The second, I believe, was in the Der Spiegel. Then there was Maclean's magazine. At the time, we were monitoring the situation very closely to see which of the ones that had obtained that information would be the first to publish it. It was the Financial Post. We learned that on the Friday, the day before publication, on November 17, at 5:00 p.m., when the journalist, to whom I had never spoken in my life and whom I didn't know from Adam, Philip Mathias, called Mr. Mulroney's office. The call was put through to me, he spoke to me about what he had in his hand, the letter, and we gave him a very brief statement that had been prepared by Mr. Mulroney's lawyers.
Liberal
As an Individual
We could have fun making assumptions, you and I, but, frankly, very honestly, I don't know who was at the origin of the leak. Neither that one nor any of the others, but I have doubts about some of those leaks.
As an Individual
Let's say that Stevie Cameron played a fairly curious role: she was both journalist and police informer and had a code attached to her name, and everything. And, as if by chance, one of the calls that I received was from Stevie Cameron.
As an Individual
The RCMP officer with whom she was working was Fraser Fiegenwald, who did write the letter.
Liberal
