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--