Mr. Speaker, by November 8, 1995 the justice minister knew about the inflammatory contents of Kimberly Prost's letter to the Swiss authorities regarding the Airbus scandal.
At that time the justice minister had the opportunity to withdraw the letter and forward a second one, minus the libellous language. This would have stopped the $50 million lawsuit and saved the taxpayers a $1 million out of court settlement and would not have interfered with the RCMP investigation.
Why did the justice minister not withdraw the letter immediately on learning of its libellous content?