Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 14th, 2008

[Stevie Cameron]

This is an interesting and a difficult question. I think they were worried that the only remnant of their case on the Airbus-Thyssen-MBB secret commission was to charge MBB. There were no charges in Thyssen, and there were no charges in Airbus, and there were no Canadians charged. There were two Germans who were employees of MBB charged, and the company was charged, but that was the last little shred of that massive investigation. And there was a search warrant, which used an informant. I think they thought that if the informant....

I didn't know. I learned years and years later that I was the informant, and as soon as I learned that, I formally rejected the little gift they had given me—

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

The status of informant.

[Stevie Cameron]

—the status of an informant.

He threatened me—Superintendent Allan Matthews, who was in charge of this investigation—because he saw the case collapsing if the informant said it wasn't true, and what he had said about me wasn't true.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Do you think the RCMP dropped the matter too suddenly? Do you think it had anything to do with having to apologize to Brian Mulroney? Do you think the RCMP should reopen the investigation to finally get to the bottom of this on behalf of Canadians?

[Stevie Cameron]

I have to tell you the truth, Mr. Martin: I don't think the RCMP could get to the bottom of this.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

What could--a full public inquiry, a royal commission?

[Stevie Cameron]

That's really not for me to say. I go back to my statement that I'm a reporter. But I know that, for my own use, for my own.... I don't know a lot about hiding money and laundering money, so I go to experts. I had a wonderful expert who helped me with this book, and I had a wonderful expert who also helped me, to some extent, with On the Take. These are people who do understand how money travels and what happens to it. I don't know that the RCMP had the benefit of expertise the way that I did. The man who helped me with this—

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You're saying that the RCMP, after eight years of investigation, didn't have the ability or the skill or the expertise to conduct this investigation adequately?

[Stevie Cameron]

I don't think they did.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's disturbing.

[Stevie Cameron]

I have no problem telling you who helped me with this. I thanked him in the introduction. It was a Canadian called Hans Marschdorf. Mr. Marschdorf is a forensic accountant. He had his own firm in Germany. He is German. He left that firm to become partner in charge for Price Waterhouse in Zurich. He worked in Zurich with my very old friend Bob Lindquist, who is the man who is widely considered to have invented forensic accounting. Bob Lindquist started his own firm in Toronto and helped me on a number of occasions on various things. He was fun. We always had a good time together, and—

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you. I'm going to have to interrupt.

We're going to go to Mr. Hiebert, please.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair; and thank you, Ms. Cameron, for appearing before us today.

I would like to bring us back to the study we're working on. I'd like to start by considering your involvement in the letter of request that was sent to the Swiss authorities that resulted in the $2.1 million settlement that Canadians had to pay.

You're undoubtedly aware that on February 25, 2004, a reporter by the name of Kirk Makin wrote an article in The Globe and Mail that identified you as an informant for the RCMP. You've made a couple of comments about your status as an informant. I don't really want to get into the debate about whether or not you were a confidential informant or a casual informant. I just really want to know if you provided information to the RCMP.

[Stevie Cameron]

Yes, I did.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Okay. When did that start?

[Stevie Cameron]

The RCMP came to see me in January 1995. They visited every reporter who worked on the Airbus story, and I was one of the people they went to see.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

How many times did you meet with the RCMP over the course of the years that have transpired since 1995?

[Stevie Cameron]

Three or four times.

I should tell you, Mr. Hiebert, that the man who was in charge of the RCMP investigation was also the press spokesperson, the media person for the RCMP at that time on this case. So we all dealt with him because he was the person we were told to talk to.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

So in the past 13 years you've met with the RCMP about three or four times.

[Stevie Cameron]

I can't tell you the exact number, but it was just a handful of times.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Was it more than six?

[Stevie Cameron]

I can't tell you that. It wouldn't be more than six, I don't think.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Which officers did you meet with?

[Stevie Cameron]

I met Fraser Fiegenwald. I don't remember who he was with. He was with another officer. That would have been, as I say, in January 1995.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

He was the only person you ever met with during those five or six occasions?