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.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
In your role in the Prime Minister's office during that time did you have any involvement or first-hand knowledge of the Airbus issue and the plans for Air Canada to buy Airbus?
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
None. Okay.
In that role that you had, did you have any knowledge of the consulting agreement between Prime Minister Mulroney and Mr. Schreiber? Did you have any knowledge of that while you worked in the PMO's office? Did you have any sense there was anything happening there while you were there?
And then afterwards, in 1995, when did you learn about that agreement?
As an Individual
I would like you to be a little more specific.
While I was there did I know...?
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Did you know anything about the relationship between Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Mulroney? Was there any consulting work or was he paying him anything that you knew about?
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
No. Okay.
When he hired you in 1995, when did you learn about the consulting agreement that he, as a lawyer, and Mr. Schreiber, as a business person, had? When did you learn about that?
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Not until the spring of 2000. Okay.
You were answering a question earlier from one of my colleagues. You're obviously well aware of the letter that caused the Government of Canada of the day to pay the settlement, and really, that is why this committee has been constituted to look at this issue and whether there was information available that wasn't available then to make the decision any different.
Your interpretation of why the government settled, compared to what the opposition members were saying, was different. I'd like to give you a chance to tell us what your interpretation of that was.
As an Individual
There was a letter sent on September 29, 1995, in which the drafter--it was signed by a public servant of the Department of Justice, but I think the drafter was a member of the RCMP--was stating, without any attempt to make it conditional or anything like that, or to qualify it in any way, that this letter was of the utmost importance because it had to do with the criminal activities of the former Prime Minister of Canada, from the day he took office in 1984 to the day he left office in 1993. It went on to describe a scheme under which $5 million had passed from bank accounts in Liechtenstein into a bank account at the Swiss Bank Corporation in Zurich, Switzerland. That bank account you could open through a code word “Devon”. The letter of request was sent as a statement of fact to the Swiss authorities.
By the way, it's interesting to remember that seven drafts of that letter had been prepared because the first draft wouldn't trigger the system in Switzerland; they would correspond with their equivalent in Switzerland and say, what if we sent you this, and it was a qualified way of describing it. They said no, that's not enough to trigger our system, so they went to the seventh draft. The seventh draft said, those are facts; all we need to complete our investigation is that you freeze those bank accounts and bank records and send them over to us. That was it. That's what the letter was saying.
The reality is that we found out very rapidly in the process, in a letter sent by the Attorney General of Switzerland, a lady who became famous later on as the chief prosecutor for the war crimes tribunal, Mrs. Carla Del Ponte, that there never was any bank account in Switzerland that belonged to Brian Mulroney. There was also the fact that, according to the process in place in Switzerland, a copy of this letter was sent to each member of the board of the Swiss Bank Corporation, and there are 25 members on that board. There was also the fact that we found out, as we suspected all along, that the sole source for the content of the letter was a journalist who had accepted to turn herself into a police informant. I should be more specific, because indeed Norman Spector provided an affidavit. There was a leak from day one. The first leak came from Switzerland.
The reason for the settlement is that the Government of Canada, the Attorney General, the RCMP.... Let's put it this way: the RCMP had no evidence whatsoever to support this horrendous libel.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you.
You claimed, and this is your wording, that Mr. Mulroney may have reached an agreement for consulting with Mr. Schreiber because he needed money. Mr. Mulroney, in front of us, claimed that this is just not the case. Do you still stand by that statement? I don't understand why you said that.
As an Individual
I don't want to join the misquoted, so I'm standing by the quote, but it has to be put in context. The context is that I was having a conversation with a journalist; the same story was reported by two different journalists, and in both cases the quotations were the same but they were interpreted differently. What I was saying is that Mr. Mulroney was not a man who had inherited millions of dollars. He was not a wealthy man, like former prime ministers in the past, and I'm not saying this in a derogatory way. He was not a rich man. What I was saying is that when you leave office and you were an elected official--and I've known many others who went through this process--and you want to start a new career, you may be optimistic, but you're looking to get your first pieces of business. That's what I was saying.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Thank you.
Mr. Lavoie, one of the big mysteries of this, and Canadians really want the answer, is was it $300,000 or $225,000?
In an article on January 23, 2007, by Jim Bronskill and Joan Bryden, who are the sources, in the Canadian Press entitled, “Justice Department weighed reopening 1997 Airbus settlement with Mulroney”, it says:
In January 2007, Mr. Lavoie acknowledged that the amount Mr. Schreiber paid to Mr. Mulroney was $300,000 when he said that the RCMP informed Mr. Mulroney in the summer of 2000 that they were aware of a $300,000 retainer from Schreiber.
It does go on. But it's clear that you made the representation to these media personnel in January 2007 that it was $300,000.
How do you explain the discrepancy between that and what Mr. Mulroney says of it being only $225,000?
As an Individual
The number $300,000 is a figure that came out in the media. It came out in The Globe and Mail. We never denied it, and then it became the truth, or was perceived as being the truth, and I never tried to fight back. I never asked if it was the exact amount of money.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for asking one of my questions.
I want to tell everybody from the outset, before we start, that none of my questions have come directly from the CBC.
Mr. Lavoie, you're in charge of public relations for Quebecor and Brian Mulroney is the chairman of the board of Quebecor. Is that correct?
As an Individual
No. Mr. Mulroney is the chairman of the board of Quebecor World, which is a subsidiary of Quebecor Inc.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
All right.
Mr. Lavoie, following on the chairman's question on this $75,000 or $100,000 deal, you said in your response to his question that this came from the media. That's true. But what's a little unsettling is that it came from the media through a quote from you, unless you're quarreling with the Ottawa Citizen story that quotes you quoting Mr. Mulroney quoting Mr. Schreiber. It goes like this:
“Then he said”--
--this is Schreiber--
“I would give you $100,000 a year” and then he pulled out an envelope with $100,000 and Mr. Mulroney said “what is that?” He said “well, I want to pay you in cash.” So Mr. Mulroney asked a few questions.
--maybe about serial numbers, I don't know--
'Why would you do this in cash?' and all that,” said Mr. Lavoie.
You were told by Mr. Mulroney that Mr. Schreiber gave him $100,000, on the first occasion, in cash, and then you told the Ottawa press in a highly charged political environment in November of 2007. So how can you say the media made this up? Your client or you said it was $100,000 at the first instance.
As an Individual
I didn't say the media made this up. I said the figure of $300,000 is the figure that came from a story by Bill Kaplan in The Globe and Mail, which I never fought back on, on behalf of my client. This figure is the one that was floating out there, and I never specifically asked whether it was $300,000 or it was less. I knew about three payments in the tens of thousands of dollars in cash.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Would you at least admit that from a professional point of view it was sloppy for you to quote and say $100,000 without verifying that in a quote that comes from a former Prime Minister?
I guess you won't.
The ex-Prime Minister was here saying it was $75,000. One wonders whether he wants it to be $225,000 because that's what he declared on his tax returns, not the $300,000 that he told you privately. That will remain a question that's out there, Mr. Chairman.
Did he ever give you the name of the consulting firm that you then became aware of, which Mr. Mulroney formed after he left office? Were you aware of whether or not it's been registered under the registration acts in Ontario or Quebec, or for Canada federally?
As an Individual
I knew of the existence of an arrangement with his law office at his law firm that allowed him to have a separate consulting firm. I take it for granted that it was all properly organized.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
I could look at the August 2, 1993,
the agreement between Ogilvy Renault and Mr. Mulroney,
and it speaks very clearly of
“[...] compensation and other forms of earnings shall remain yours alone [...]”
That means “unique to Mr. Mulroney”.
But it doesn't talk about his consulting firm that he mentions existed, and you know of no name of a consulting firm like “Brion” or “Devon” or “Mulroney Investments” or whatever? You know of no firm like that?
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Okay.
I'm going to go back to your firm's $587,000 bill for services rendered shortly after the proverbial...hit the fan. I know you're not a stranger to profanity; I've seen it here--