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.
NDP
Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC
Mr. Mulroney said in his testimony that he had kept $1,000 bills in the United States. He had kept them in Canadian $1,000 bills in a safe deposit box in an American bank. Once again, you had to be able to explain that.
What explanation can you give us in response to the following question: what expenses can be paid in the United States with Canadian $1,000 bills?
As an Individual
I'm not involved in that retainer. I am certainly not the person who can answer that.
NDP
Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC
So it was your former client, Mr. Mulroney, who could tell us what one can buy in the United States with Canadian $1,000 bills. He said he had used them for expenses in the United States.
I'm going to go back to the question that Mr. Thibault and Mr. Ménard tried to raise earlier, because your answer still doesn't convince me.
You are the spokesman of a former prime minister. You are hired to give his version of the facts, and you do it very well. You went before the cameras last fall. You talked about the three $100,000 payments. I look in vain to see where Brian Mulroney might have contradicted you publicly. I can't find it, except when he came here or just before that, when the three $100,000 payments suddenly became three $75,000 payments.
As a communications expert, how is it that, as soon as you referred to three $100,000 payments in the fall, that wasn't immediately the subject of a correction on your part?
As an Individual
I have no answer to give you.
I'd like to make a minor correction, even though it concerns a detail: I didn't speak before the cameras.
Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC
No, but you said it publicly.
You say you don't have an answer to give me. Unfortunately, you're required to answer.
As an Individual
I don't have an answer to give you. It's not that I refuse to answer; you tell me—
NDP
Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC
You mentioned $300,000, and he was your client. Did Mr. Mulroney contact you immediately to tell you that you had made an incorrect statement, that it was not $300,000? Did he call you that same day to obtain an explanation of what had been written in the newspapers?
NDP
Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC
Why didn't you correct your remarks? That's the question I'm asking you.
As an Individual
I didn't do it because, in the media atmosphere prevailing last fall, everything was taking on incredible proportions.
As an Individual
That was better. At least that's what we concluded, rightly or wrongly. He had to come and testify here and he would be able to correct the facts. That's it.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Lavoie, it's nice to see you here. We have some questions for you.
First of all, I'd like some clarification, if I could, so that we know. Could you explain to me and to the committee what you did for the Prime Minister's office from 1988 to 1991? What was your job there?
Conservative
As an Individual
I was in charge of logistics, operation, organization of international travelling, and different roles that he would assign to me.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Okay.
Then you left that position, and the next time you worked directly for Mr. Mulroney? When did he hire you the next time, in 1995?
As an Individual
I was hired by Mr. Mulroney as a public relations consultant in the summer of 1995 to help him with a completely different project, and then in November 1995 on this specific case.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Could you tell us, when you were an employee of the Prime Minister's office, what involvement did you have or did you have any first-hand knowledge of the Bear Head project?
As an Individual
Zero, except what I read in the media, and my recollection is simply that there was a project to build light-armoured vehicles on Cape Breton Island.
