Evidence of meeting #17 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 money.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Good afternoon, colleagues. This is the 17th meeting of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Our orders of the day are the study of the Mulroney Airbus settlement.
Mr. Hiebert.
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just before we begin, I'd like to give notice of a motion. I know there's no 24 hours' notice for this motion, so I understand there's no debate and I'm not going to take very much time. But I just want to read it into the record and give copies to my colleagues, if I could. It will just take a moment. It's one paragraph.
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
That's why I'd like to address this, before the witness undertakes her testimony.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
No, I think we'll do this at the end of the meeting, especially since there's no proper notice. Okay? Thank you.
Our witness today is Mrs. Stevie Cameron, who is a journalist, author, and blogger, who has published extensively on the Mulroney Airbus libel settlement and related issues. Her books On the Take and The Last Amigo, the latter co-written with Harvey Cashore, have been extensively cited in the media and other accounts of the matters that give rise to the committee's study. She is currently a writer-at-large at The Globe and Mail, a contributing editor to Maclean's, and a monthly columnist at Elm Street magazine, of which she was founding editor.
Good afternoon, Mrs. Cameron.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
On December 15, 2007, the committee provided me with a list of priority witnesses to be called. Your name was included initially, then dropped, and then came back again, which we had this little discussion about with the clerk—I think you're aware—but you are here today and we thank you kindly for accepting our invitation to appear.
I would ask the assistant clerk to please swear you in before we proceed.
3:30 p.m.
As an Individual
The evidence I shall give on this examination shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Thank you.
Mrs. Cameron, the matter before us is very serious, as you know, and we hope that you can help us clarify or better understand certain matters that have been brought before this committee. Refusal to answer a question is not an option. However, if you believe there is a valid reason that a question not be answered, I will hear your reasons and make a ruling. I would also remind you that anything you say before this committee is protected by parliamentary privilege and cannot be used against you in any other proceeding, legal or otherwise.
As a courtesy to our translators, I ask you not to speak too quickly. I will give you the time to make your full statement and to fully answer questions posed to you by the members of the committee.
Do you have any questions on what I have said so far?
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Thank you.
I understand you do have a brief opening statement, and I invite you to address the committee now.
3:30 p.m.
As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Szabo.
Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, as the committee members know, I'm appearing today at the request of the committee, and I'm not sure I can help you in your deliberations. Although you do have a copy of my curriculum vitae, it does not describe my work on the Schreiber-Mulroney Airbus case that is before you now. I think it would be helpful to offer you a brief summary of what I did on this story and why I did it.
I started covering federal politics in the mid-1980s when the Ottawa Citizen—I was there for six years—formed a small investigative unit, and the publisher at the time, Paddy Sherman, asked me to join it. That was because I had broken the story of the John Turner and Pierre Trudeau last-minute patronage appointments as Mr. Trudeau left office in 1984.
I covered the new Conservative government for the Citizen until 1986, when I moved to The Globe and Mail in Toronto as a columnist and a national reporter.
After living in Ottawa for several years I knew many people here in all walks of life, and Phyllis Bruce, an Ottawa native and then an editor of Key Porter Books in Toronto, asked me to write an insider's guide to political life in Ottawa. The result was Ottawa Inside Out in 1989, which, among other things, documents the rise of the lobbying firms in the city, especially that of Frank Moores, the firm called Government Consultants International, or GCI.
At that time—well, not in 1989, much earlier than that—I was beginning to hear many rumours that Moores, a member of the Air Canada board, was lobbying on behalf of Airbus for the new Air Canada passenger planes.
I also wrote a major piece about the firm for The Globe and Mail's Report on Business Magazine, but was unable, at that time, to confirm that Moores and his partners were working for Airbus. After the article was published I received an interesting letter saying that Moores was about to make a fortune on the contract. I still have no idea who sent it to me. That tip is reproduced on my website.
Over the next few years, as you will see on my CV, I worked for CBC's the fifth estate, The Globe and Mail, and Maclean's magazine. They all assigned me stories on politics and the Conservative government, although I worked on many other kinds of stories as well.
In 1992 I worked for publishers Macfarlane Walter and Ross on On the Take, and then I returned to Maclean's, where I was a contributing editor.
By 1994 I continued to hear stories that massive amounts of money and secret commissions had been paid by German businesses to obtain federal contracts in Canada. The rumours involved companies that included, of course, Thyssen, Airbus Industrie, and MBB, Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm. The name associated with the deals and the rumours was Karlheinz Schreiber. I decided to try to determine whether secret commissions existed, and if so, who received the money.
My publishers, Macfarlane Walter and Ross, were interested in a book on this subject, and I decided the answers to our questions could lie in Europe. My search led me to Giorgio Pelossi, and several other people in Germany and Switzerland in 1995. I was thinking about that 1995.... I'm sorry, I didn't check it before I came, but it might have been 1996.
It also led me to the story of Bruce Verchere, Brian Mulroney's tax lawyer and the man who managed his blind trust when Mr. Mulroney was in Parliament.
The result was a story of fraud, a marriage, and international celebrities. Macfarlane Walter and Ross published the book in 1998. It was called Blue Trust.
My publishers and I felt I was getting closer and closer to solving the Airbus mystery, and in 1999 we decided to go ahead with a book. After Karlheinz Schreiber was arrested in Toronto later that same year, I began work on the project full-time. I invited Harvey Cashore, a producer at the fifth estate, to share the project with me, because he was as interested in the story as I was. Several months after I started, he joined in as a formal partner in the book.
Macfarlane Walter and Ross were once again my publishers, and I worked on the book until 2001. It was published in the spring of that year. It was called The Last Amigo. Some of that research that we assembled for that book as well as an excellent timeline of events is available on the CBC website. My own website also has a small section on The Last Amigo.
Nothing in these books has ever been challenged in court.
In conclusion, I should add that I have had no new information since these books were published. I've been hard at work on two books on the Robert Pickton serial murder case in British Columbia. I'm tabling here all four of the books that I've mentioned today, as well as transcripts of interviews and handwritten notes that I did for On The Take with François Martin.
If you would allow me to add a personal note, I am very fond of François Martin. I think very highly of him, and I'm very uncomfortable putting in notes of our interviews. But I think you will all understand why I felt obliged to do this and why I felt obliged to give you the handwritten notes as well, so you can see where the transcript comes from.
Thank you.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Thank you kindly.
We're going to proceed with questions from the members, and we'll see how it goes from there.
We're going to start with Mr. Dhaliwal, please.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Mrs. Cameron, and happy Valentine's Day to you.
You mentioned that you started in the mid-1980s. When was the first time you met Karlheinz Schreiber? What year was that?
3:40 p.m.
As an Individual
Mr. Dhaliwal, I've never met him, except outside a courtroom when he was arrested in.... Or, gosh, maybe it was his bail hearing. I've only met him outside a courtroom, once.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Okay.
You have claimed that a Conservative fundraiser was offered a Senate seat by the late Mr. Guy Charbonneau in exchange for a contribution of $100,000 to account number 830 at Montreal Trust, and that fundraiser declined. Who was this fundraiser?
3:40 p.m.
As an Individual
Do you mean the fundraiser who was asked to pay the money to get a Senate seat?
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Mrs. Cameron, I'm having a little difficulty with the question myself. I'm going to ask Mr. Dhaliwal, if he could, without going any further here, to give a brief explanation as to why this is relevant to the matter before the committee.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Mr. Chair, I'm going to try to trace in my future questions whether this fund was transferred into the PC Canada Fund. I'm trying to link it to that account.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I'm going to rule the question out of order.
Can you move on to your next question, please?
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
I will. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
So are you ruling out the name of the person?