Information & Ethics Committee on Dec. 4th, 2007

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I call to order the sixth meeting of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

I want to ask for silence in this room throughout the meeting. Any distractions or disruptions may interfere with the ability of the witnesses or the members to carefully hear what is said. We do not want to interfere with the flow of speaking, and I ask all in this room for their full cooperation.

In relation to our study--and I stress “study”--of the Mulroney Airbus settlement, the committee passed the following motion:

That in order to examine whether there were violations of ethical and code-of-conduct standards by any office-holder, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics review the matters relating to the Mulroney Airbus settlement, including any and all new evidence, testimony, and information not available at the time of the settlement, including allegations relating to the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney made by Mr. Karlheinz Schreiber, and in particular the handling of allegations by the present government or past governments, including the circulation of relevant correspondence in the Privy Council Office or Prime Minister's Office; also, that Mr. Karlheinz Schreiber be called to be a witness before the committee without delay, and that the committee report to the House its findings, conclusions, and recommendations thereon.

Appearing before us this morning is Mr. Karlheinz Schreiber, who is accompanied by his legal counsel, Mr. Richard Auger, who may advise his client but may not address the committee.

Good morning, gentlemen.

Mr. Schreiber, please be advised that you are still under oath.

Let me begin, Mr. Schreiber, by letting you know that we have received a very, very large number of faxes and e-mails from Canadians all across the country. They were expressing their disgust at the failure of the responsible policing authorities to ensure your personal dignity while being in handcuffs when led to your Ottawa residence to access your documents. This unacceptable incident was also exploited by some, as you know, who also subjected you to ridicule and mockery. This matter was internationally reported, and in our view, the committee's view, the shaming of one Canadian has shamed all Canadians.

The committee members sincerely regret that this indignity occurred, and we strongly--very strongly--encourage those who are responsible to take all necessary steps to ensure that such a spectacle will never happen again. It is not the Canadian way.

Mr. Schreiber, last Friday one of your legal representatives characterized the work of this committee as a political circus. Respectfully, I say to you and to your legal counsel that this is not a political circus. This is the Parliament of Canada, our system of government. We will be judged on the effectiveness of our work and not on tiresome, old rhetoric.

Our committee members are all honourable members of Parliament who have been elected to their positions under the electoral laws of Canada by the people of Canada. Through the authority delegated to us by the House of Commons under section 108 of the Standing Orders, we fully represent the interests and responsibilities of the Parliament of Canada.

We take these responsibilities very seriously. We treat all who appear before us with dignity and respect, and we expect to be treated with the same consideration. We defend and protect the principles of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and we conduct our business in full accordance with the rules of Parliament. Finally, we are guided by the practices, precedents, and conventions of the British parliamentary system of government.

Let no person question the legitimacy, authority, or resolve of this committee to effectively discharge our solemn responsibilities to the people of Canada in a firm but fair manner. We have a duty to respond to the significant public interest in the matter before us. We also have a duty to hear what the principals involved have to say, in their own words, without the dissection by lawyers who may only be motivated by the narrow interests of their own clients. Not everything is best heard through the filters of a judicial inquiry or before a court of law. This committee is all about promoting freedom of speech and about the readiness of those who come before us to be judged by public opinion for what they have said.

Mr. Schreiber, when you appeared before us last Thursday, the committee learned for the first time that, for whatever reason, you had not had access to your records and papers to prepare for your appearance, which had been specifically--specifically--stipulated in the Speaker's warrant. I was, however, aware that you were subject to extradiction as early as Saturday, December 1. A stay in your extradiction pending application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court was granted by the courts last Friday. But had that not occurred, it was possible that you would have been extradited last Saturday, and you would not be before us today.

For that reason, I took the decision to proceed last Thursday and make whatever progress was possible, knowing full well that you might not be able to answer some detailed questions without consulting source documents. As chair, I take full responsibility for that decision. But in my view, adjourning the meeting at that time without trying to make some progress would not have been in the public interest.

The fact that the Speaker's warrant was not fully enforced caused me some serious concern. Accordingly, last Friday I wrote to the Sergeant-at-Arms asking him to provide me with a comprehensive accountability report so that we can learn what happened and why. The committee will consider the facts when that report is received.

For some time, Mr. Schreiber, you have publicly stated many, many times, including in your letter to Prime Minister Harper with many, many attachments, that you wanted an opportunity to tell your story regarding the Mulroney Airbus affair and to get the facts, as you know them, on the public record. Consequently, this committee has taken extraordinary measures, if not historic steps, to provide you with that opportunity, and now is the time to begin.

You gave us an opening statement at our meeting last Thursday. It is, however, likely that the questions that will be posed to you throughout your appearances may not cover all the areas or points you feel are important for us to understand. As such, I invite you now, or at any time, to come before this committee to make any further detailed statements that you feel are relevant and germane to the matter before us.

Do you have an opening statement to make to us today?

[Karlheinz Schreiber, As an Individual]

Yes, I do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Schreiber, I'm going to give you the time you require to speak to the people of Canada.

Please proceed.

[Karlheinz Schreiber]

First of all, Mr. Chair, I have to tell you that I am deeply impressed and touched by your words. I thank you for that, and all the members of the committee. I would like to say good morning to everybody.

I think, as you pointed out, that this committee may have great importance to each and every Canadian, and that all of you one day may be very proud that you have been with it. Because I believe very much, from the bottom of my heart, that this will be a historic committee. Of course, I think your aim to lead this to a further full public inquiry is the way to go, because we all understand that the committee has not the tools to do what an inquiry can do. So let's try to do our best to satisfy this committee and Canadians.

All Canadians, in my opinion, should watch the proceedings of this committee very carefully, because you cannot fight wrongdoing by running away, and the value of a country is decided by the citizens exactly by the value they put to their country.

My problem, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, is that I never ran away in my whole life, and I believe that I am a pretty good Canadian.

I have a little problem this morning. Maybe it's all the detention and all that's happened to me, and I have this all written down here as notes for myself. I am a great-grandpa. I have two children, six grandchildren, a great-grandchild, and they didn't like seeing their grandpa in the position you described, so I have a little emotional problem this morning, and I want to apologize for that.

On Friday we had this court appearance, and I don't know whether you know this, but to my great surprise, after nine years the crown for the first time consented to my bail. I know that this committee probably has protected me, as a boss from the detention centre in Ottawa did when the RCMP tried to kidnap me. So I'm grateful. I've asked for years for this inquiry, so I want you to know--and especially you, Mr. Pat Martin--that for me it was torture. Here you are, you fight like hell, especially you, to bring me to my home and make sure everything is properly done, and then I don't answer your questions. This is why I came earlier, especially to apologize to you, as I do to all the members of the committee, and especially to the chairman. I regret deeply that Mr. Thibault cannot be here today after the questions he had for me, though I understand he is shovelling snow. I think he will regret that he couldn't be here, and I feel sorry for him.

I don't want to take too long with my opening remarks, but I would like to lead your attention to two groups of people, the people from the detention centres in Toronto and in Ottawa. At the detention centre in Ottawa the people know me, because I've come for nine years, from time to time. They protected me against this illegal event, and we are going to go after this pretty soon. The other one is the superintendent at the detention centre here, who made it possible to prepare everything I wanted to bring to you today.

They are great guys. I have to say this.

The funny part—and you may laugh about this—is that in Ottawa the people are friendly, but in Toronto it was somehow outstanding. The inmates got to know from television who I am. These guys—I mean, there were all kinds of criminals, whatever they are, young people, older people—when they learned what happened, they said, “Schreiber, don't you worry. You have 25 bodyguards here on this range. Nobody is going to take you out from here.” I found this outstanding.

So in other words, quite a few people tried to protect me.

I would now like to come right away to what I have prepared for today. I think I would like to start with perhaps the most important thing in the whole case.

What is this all about? It's all about what happened with the government under Mr. Mulroney, what the arrangements were for some kinds of money, or whatever it is. But whatever you touch there deals with a project, and that was, for example, what they had in the letter of request. It deals with Airbus, it deals with the Bear Head project, and it deals with the helicopters for the coast guard. In other words, wherever money is involved, it has to come from somewhere, and in business it comes from projects. We would like to hear more about this today and on other occasions.

So let me show you something that is not known so far. I brought some documents that I think are the key documents in the whole affair.

Let's start, first of all, with the most spectacular thing, the Airbus affair, which gives a name to the whole thing. The whole event around Airbus, and this has to be known by the committee, was an international war between Europe—the European countries, most of them shareholders in Airbus Industrie—and the United States. You have seen in the media what attention and importance the American government gave that whole situation when Airbus tried to get business on the North American continent. Though I must not go into this at the moment, when you have questions later I am prepared to speak about the Americans involved--the FBI, the CIA, everybody.

Anyhow, the problem with Airbus was that in those days—and it's important for you to know this—Airbus could not fly across the Atlantic or across water. The planes had only two engines, and with two engines you were only allowed to go up to 90 kilometres or miles away from shore. So Airbus, to survive, needed business where aircraft could fly over soil. There's only one place. A huge country with a lot of aircraft is North America. So that's the United States, mainly. Canada was more or less used as a Trojan horse to break into that situation. That showed, from a European point of view, that there is a monopoly, held by the United States, in orbit. There is a monopoly, held by the United States, in the military sky. Another total monopoly in the civil sky would have been totally unacceptable for the Europeans, and especially for the American airlines.

I am not criticizing the United States or their companies because they held this position. They have to look out for their interests, and that's fine with me. But the Europeans had to look after their interests.

Involved in that whole attempt to come to the North American market was Mr. Franz Josef Strauss. Franz Josef Strauss was the chairman of the Christian Social Union, and he also was the premier of Bavaria and the chairman of MBB, Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm. Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm was the company that held the shareholdings at Airbus Industrie, so we have a double function here.

The other gentleman heavily involved in this was François Mitterrand, the French President, who had the same interest as Mr. Strauss. It was, by the way, a remarkable friendship. Mr. Strauss was such a strong conservative and François Mitterrand was a strong socialist, as we know, but they had a perfect understanding on this matter. As far as I know, it was Monsieur Mitterrand who visited Mr. Mulroney when he was here on a visit and spoke with him about the Airbus problems.

So having said that, this is the political side of the whole thing.

Now let me bring you back to the late seventies, early eighties, when I came to Canada. I mean, I did not come to Canada the first time.... I was out west most of the time, but I came to Montreal and to the eastern part of Canada. I was invited to come here by a gentleman whose name was Walter Wolf. Walter Wolf was an entrepreneur in the oil business and with scuba divers on offshore oil rigs. He was very close to Michel Cogger, who later on was a senator. Both claimed they were very close friends to Mr. Mulroney, who we are going to meet.

First of all, we meet the president of the Progressive Conservative Party, who is Mr. Frank Moores. Mr. Frank Moores had just left his job as the Premier of Newfoundland and was trying to get enough funds and was trying to get Mr. Mulroney to become Prime Minister of Canada, with quite a few people around. So this was the first time I met with him.

I'll try to make this story short so that you understand where I'm coming from and why I'm saying this. Because now money is required, the leadership convention is coming up, and what can I do? So my question was, of course, fine, the conservatives from Bavaria have had many people, many conservative parties, also others for political reasons, and I was the one quite often who brought the money for elections or support. I said, well, I am prepared to help, but what is it all about? Well, when Brian Mulroney becomes the Prime Minister, we will have a different country; we will have a different attitude to business. You see, he is a businessman, he is with Iron Ore, he's a lawyer, and he really understands.

I met with Mr. Mulroney at the Ritz Carlton in Montreal. His office was across the street. He was a very charming and, at that time, a pretty heavy-drinking gentleman. So we had a pretty good understanding.

Mr. Moores then explained to me that all these people who were around, of course, were looking out for their own interests as well. One wanted to become a minister; the other one wanted to become a member of his staff at the PMO, like Michel Cogger, or others to become ministers, like Coates, or whatever. Anyway, I asked him about his job. He has incorporated or will incorporate a company with the name Alta Nova, which is a lobbying company. He explained to me, you can imagine when that company is in place and we have all our friends there. Really, they can help do business--create jobs, do business, and make money. Yes, that made sense to me.

I said, and how is this going to work? He said, we'll do this, and I am convinced this will go fine. I said to him, what is Mr. Mulroney's position in this? Well, he said, when he is not Prime Minister anymore, he will join us later on, because he has to live on something anyhow.

That was just so you understand the basis of the whole thing. So now you know the Joe Clark thing happened. Money was needed, and great surprise, Wardair brought the delegates from Montreal to Winnipeg. Got a lot of laughs on that.

Finally, the company GCI, Government Consultants International, was involved.

Now I'll take the liberty to read something to you that makes it much easier for me. The first letter I'm going to read to you is from February 3, 1988, and the letter is from GCI, which is Government Consultants International, to Dr. Franz Josef Strauss, Minister President, Chairman of the Christian-Social Union, Bayerische Staatskanzlei, Prinzregentenstrasse 7, 8000 München 22, Federal Republic of Germany:

Dear Dr. Strauss:

Further to my letter to you of June 5, 1986,

--I don't have that letter, I never saw it--

I would like to bring to your attention a situation that has developed regarding the sales of aircraft to Air Canada. As you are aware, the sale of Airbus aircraft to Wardair was successful and proceeded virtually as we suggested in the letter to you. The problem that seems to have arisen now is that the German partners in Airbus, contrary to their other partners, have turned down a request for the deficiency guarantee for the potential sale of 33 aircraft to Air Canada. This has created problems that go beyond just the deficiency guarantee itself, in that Canadian interests are aware that these guarantees have been provided for countries all over the world and would feel strongly that they would expect equal treatment. Furthermore, in the case of Air Canada, which is guaranteed by the Canadian government, the deficiency guarantee is in fact a mere formality. I believe the sale of the A320 to Air Canada would be of much greater significance than just the number of planes involved. First, I believe that the competition will be forced to order Airbus aircraft if they are going to be competitive against Air Canada. Second, as the Canadian national airline with landing rights worldwide, it will show that another North American airline has total confidence in Airbus. Third, and probably the most important, any additional equipment required by Air Canada and others will undoubtedly have to come from Airbus because of the commonality of cockpits and other technology of which we are aware. I understand that Aerospatiale, who is the partner responsible for the Canadian development of Airbus, has virtually reached an agreement with Canadair of Montreal for the development of equipment for Airbus - an agreement which is not only satisfactory to both parties but has been very welcomed by the government of Canada. Anything you can do to assist in resolving the above problem, I know would be appreciated by all concerned. In the meantime, best personal regards to you and your family, Yours sincerely, Frank D. Moores

The answer--

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Excuse me, Mr. Schreiber. We will require copies. The translators and the transcript would not be able to have all of those names and companies. So we would like to have, not the originals, but copies of any documents you feel are helpful to our records.

[Karlheinz Schreiber]

Mr. Chairman, it's all prepared for you today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you kindly.

Please proceed.

[Karlheinz Schreiber]

This is from Dr. Franz Josef Strauss, dated March 29, 1988.

Dear Mr. Moores:

Thank you for your letter of February 3rd, 1988, in which you address the issue of an Airbus Industrie deficiency guarantee to support the financing of a potential A320 sale to Air Canada.

As to the information received from Deutsche Airbus GmbH, the German partner in the Airbus programme, the discussions between Airbus Industrie and Air Canada with regard to financing have well progressed, but have not yet advanced to a stage, where Airbus Industrie has asked their shareholders for formal approval for an Airbus Industrie manufacturer's guarantee. So in fact your information that the German partner “has turned down a request” may be based on some misunderstanding.

As I have been further informed, financing discussions between Airbus Industrie and Air Canada now are concentrating on a limited residual value guarantee to be granted in addition to export credits. This indeed seems to confirm worthiness of Air Canada by a deficiency guarantee which normally is used to support sales to weaker countries.

Please be assured that there is no reason to put doubt on the preparedness of the German partner to support any Airbus sale to Air Canada in the same way as the other Airbus partners.

Yours sincerely,

Franz Josef Strauss

This is a copy.

So that's number one. I think it makes it very clear, contrary to what we have heard so far and know so far, that this is the relationship between GCI and Airbus.

Now I can read you a letter from GCI to me in January 9, 1991.

Dear Karlheinz:

Please find enclosed the original document received from court, figures obtained from government regarding expenditures to MBB. Some calculations I have made, by definition, have to be approximate.

Best regards,

Frank Moores.

That meant the coast guard helicopters, but MBB in Munich had nothing directly to do with that. It was a Canadian company in Fort Erie. But in order to get sufficient funds from MBB to Frank Moores for other business, they needed the project. This may sound somehow strange to you, but the minister of revenue from Bavaria is always the chairman of MBB, Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm, because they are the major shareholders.

So exactly this minister and his ministry allowed all the so-called helpful donations for projects. This was much more a matter to satisfy the German minister of finance from MBB's side to deduct the expenditure to GCI than a matter of bribing somebody--seeing it as a mere matter with the Germans.

I also give you this document, with all the hand-written calculations from Frank Moores. There is also a commission breakdown from MBB towards GCI coast guard.

All these documents are known, by the way, by the German government. So I'm ready to give them to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I hear some rumbling from the members. They'll want to see these things. The members will know that we adopted a concurrence that all documents provided to the committee would be circulated immediately to all members, they would be translated as soon as possible, and then again circulated with the translation. You will have these shortly, as soon as we can get them, so you will not have to rely on your notes for questions.

I apologize for the interruption.

[Karlheinz Schreiber]

Oh no, it's fine with me. I'm easy maintenance.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Please take your time. We have some translators back there. When I see smoke rising from the translation booth, I know we're going a little too fast.

Please proceed.

[Karlheinz Schreiber]

I'm easy maintenance, Mr. Chairman.

I have here a letter from GCI to Mr. Winfried Haastert from August 6, 1986:

Dear Mr. Haastert:

Re: Proposed Manufacturing Facility at Bear Head Nova Scotia

Some considerable time has passed since your first visit to Canada to investigate the potential of investing here. I feel that it is useful to provide you with a brief summary of the efforts towards this project to date so that we may recognize the remaining priorities to bring the proposed facility into reality.

Please find the attached memo.

So that is the main project where I came in, and this was on a request from the Canadian government, through the Canadian embassy, asking to create jobs and bring business to Nova Scotia, to the Strait of Canso, where the heavy water plant was. The gulf refinery had been shut down. It was the constituency of Allan MacEachen at the time. Then Mr. Mulroney had made this remarkable speech to the Nova Scotians: “I have three things for you: jobs, jobs, and jobs.”

To create jobs and to keep jobs is my life job. It's all I've done. I don't understand anything else. But jobs mean business, and business means industrial contracts. Industrial contracts mean you have to obtain them somewhere. That is the basis for jobs, for income, for taxes, whatever. And there, Mr. Chairman, you have a fantastic family. You have the politicians from the constituency, you have some from the government, you have the unions, and you have the entrepreneurs--in one boat, because they all want the same thing. I'm convinced that each of you faces the same problem in your constituency: jobs, to make sure we have jobs, and income, and happy families.

I love that job. So I said, “Yes, I am going to do it.” If you would give it to me tomorrow again, even with my 74 years, I would be on a plane and I would do it. It was the most exciting job of my life.

Peacekeeping equipment and environmental protection, under the label of the maple leaf of Canada--show me a better export product in this world. I can tell you that the Canadian soldiers and the Canadian generals worked with me like hell, and Thyssen spent money on and on, and we designed the most sophisticated equipment quietly with them. And then I had to recognize--forgive me what I am saying--that the government did not care a shit about the security of our soldiers. This is where my war started and this is why I have made quite a few substantial enemies. But I tell you, I'm proud that they are my enemies, because if they were my friends, I would be one of the lousiest Canadians you could ever think about. But we'll come to that one day.

I don't want to read all this stuff to you. It shows what happened with this whole agreement. This is the whole report, and it shows you also a very interesting program. The program was done for Mr. Frank Moores and his wife. It was on the 30th, 31st of January, 1988. Mr. Karlheinz Schreiber and his wife, Mr. Max Strauss, and we also had the privilege to have with us Dr. Sami Jadallah, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein and Prince Sultan, the crown prince from Saudi Arabia, who finally was stupid enough to pay $200 million more for armoured cars than they were supposed to.

In the meantime, everybody laughs about it in Germany, because the Supreme Court confirmed there was no fraud under the Saudis' table and they made an overpayment, which was directed, under their direction, to those people who supported the policy of the Saudis during the Gulf War and later on.

If one would have two minutes--

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you, Mr. Schreiber.

Mr. Tilson, could you state the nature of your point of order?

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Yes, Mr. Chairman. You have offered for Mr. Schreiber to make a statement. He appears to be going on for some time. This meeting has been going for a little over three-quarters of an hour.

My question to you on this point of order, sir, is are you telling Mr. Schreiber that he can read letters for the rest of the meeting, or are you putting a time limit on his statement, as we do with other witnesses?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Tilson, that is not a point of order, but I respect the intent of what you raise.

As I indicated in my opening remarks, we could ask questions all day long and not paint the picture that Mr. Schreiber is painting for us now. I think it is in the public interest, in the interest of all interested parties, all stakeholders, that he continue as long as he's not repeating himself and as long as he's offering us documents. I think that is in the public interest. I'm going to let him continue.

Mr. Schreiber, the honourable member is anxious to participate here as well, so I'm sure we'll be as crisp as we can. But please, take the time to put what you believe is germane to the matter before us so that we can understand exactly what your story is.

[Karlheinz Schreiber]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, because this is the basis of everything you are asking, and I can satisfy the honourable member over there. I told you of the three projects—Airbus, Thyssen Bear Head, and the helicopters—and this is the last one I have to show. So I hope you are satisfied, sir.

Now I would like to turn to another thing to get this out of my hair. Last time, you saw that I was really surprised when you read the figures of all the donations that I or my companies gave to Canadian parties. I have to tell you again that I had not the smallest clue what you were talking about. When I then saw this press article, I somehow got an understanding of what it was, because you talk about, for example, my company, Thyssen Bear Head Industries.

Let me tell you that the secretary of that company is Monsieur Edmond Chiasson, a Liberal. He is a lawyer. He was with the Doucets in Halifax. His wife was the campaign manager for Mr. Chrétien in Nova Scotia. And he had these shares from Bear Head Industries, because I had this only in trust for Thyssen.

So in the normal administrative business, I was not involved. I had meetings.

We have a key witness for all this, Mr. Greg Alford. He's in Toronto today. Mr. Greg Alford was a senior vice-president, and he handled all the donations, fundraising dinners, and whatever it was. I know that in the meantime he had cut the cheque for the Liberals in 1993 in the amount of $10,000 from Thyssen Bear Head Industries—just to make that correction.

Mr. Alford is a very interesting person. He used to be vice-president and, for a while, president of GCI—Frank Moores—and Mr. Moores was more or less like his godfather, because Mr. Alford's father passed away and Mr. Moores had some property dealings with him in Chaffeys Locks. But Mr. Alford later on was also the gentleman who incorporated Spaghettissimo North America Inc., which is a pasta company. Later on, he became the president of Reto's Restaurant Systems International Inc. In other words, Mr. Alford can really answer a lot of questions for the committee from GCI, Bear Head Industries, Spaghettissimo, and Reto's. He can tell you, for example, exactly who was involved in the pasta business and who was not.

But now, since I looked at this, I found something else very remarkable, and I thought this looked so familiar to me, that it is in Germany. In Germany I had to hand over, under this Saudi program, $1 million to the treasurer of the Christlich-Soziale Union, and to my great surprise when this all came up one day, this $1 million had disappeared. So the chartered accountant and a couple of other people just stole the money.

The same happened with another donation, to Dr. Schäuble, who is now the minister of interior affairs. The money has simply disappeared.

So why am I saying this? There is money missing. In 1993, $30,000 that I donated to the Progressive Conservative Party...it's not on your own list, and it's not on this list. I gave it in cash to the brother of Mr. Jean Charest for his leadership convention.

So far—

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

You said the brother of Monsieur Charest. Is that Jean Charest?

[Karlheinz Schreiber]

I meant Jean Charest, yes. It was for the leadership convention. I was there when he was defeated by Kim Campbell.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you.

[Karlheinz Schreiber]

I thought of what happened and what the basis was for something like this, and I wanted to correct this so we would have an understanding about the payments. I know of any other payments.

Then I had prepared.... And I'll tell you, in the eight weeks in a detention centre, somehow I must have had some blackouts too. I didn't even know how much material I had already prepared as a basis for something like this coming. So I have here for you all that we have put up for you, and let me tell you what it is.

This is my correspondence with Mr. Mulroney. It is ready for you. Here it is.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Order.

[Karlheinz Schreiber]

Gentlemen, I enjoy that you have some humour and that you laugh with me, because the big laugh is that I wanted this to come out. This is why somebody wanted to kidnap me and kick me out of the country, and you stopped that. So what the hell did you expect I would do today with you?

Here is all the correspondence with Mr. Harper. Here you go.

When I sent these letters to Mr. Harper, I attached these two volumes so he would have the chance to read everything that had gone on in this country since 1995 and earlier. Now you tell me I'm not cooperating with the Canadian government? Don't make me laugh. Here, it's up to you.

The next thing is my affidavit. You have that. If not, I give it you with all the exhibits. Here we go.

Then I brought for you—you knew it would come, come on—my last letter to the Honourable Stephen Harper, referring to the “Political Justice Scandal, Abuse of Public Trust, Germany's Breach of International Law“. Here is my letter to the Prime Minister, with all the attachments, for you.

Now I'm somehow feeling like a beggar. I am empty for the moment, because I don't know whether this is a Christmas gift for all of you and for Canadians or whether it's a burden. But for sure, it will help you prepare the right and perhaps special questions besides all that I have given you, which is the basis of this.

There is no other miracle with lawyers' agreements or anything about this. When I spoke the last time about all these documents, I thought, Jesus, I have three lawyers in Canada, three lawyers in Switzerland, and three lawyers in Germany. Everything is somehow related to this, but it would mean nothing to you. This is stuff that is with the courts and with the Germans also.

What you got today is the basis, and if you are not satisfied or you find something or want something, just let me know, and then I'm going to dig for it, and hopefully I can find it. I hope this is satisfying for you.

Thank you.

Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, one thing is left. About the questions you had the last time, if you want, I can go through each question. I have put each answer to it. Or if you want to have it another day, I have it. It's up to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

First of all, Mr. Schreiber, I want to thank you for being forthright and for providing the committee, Canadians, with this information on a cooperative basis. You volunteered to be before us, although we had to use certain other documents. We understand that you wanted to tell your story, and you've proved it. It's a wonderful Christmas gift to us.

I can only give you a small Christmas gift back. I've just been advised that you have received bail.

[Karlheinz Schreiber]

Thank you so much.