Mr. Speaker, let me start by correcting a few factual errors. My hon. colleague and all of his colleagues on that side of the House continue to misrepresent the situation with respect to the letter sent by Mr. Schreiber.
My hon. friend has said, and I believe I am paraphrasing correctly, that Mr. Schreiber sent the letter and the Prime Minister received the letter. That is absolutely not true. Mr. Schreiber may have sent the letter, but the Prime Minister never received it and never read it.
Although my colleague seems to be incredulous as to how could this happen, how could a letter of such sensitivity not appear before the Prime Minister, I only point out the fact that the letter's author is someone who has been facing extradition proceedings in the country for eight years. He is facing extradition to Germany because of charges of tax evasion, fraud and forgery, to name only a few.
If that were the character of the author of this letter, why in the world would anyone in the PCO forward this on to the Prime Minister? It does not make any sense. That is why PCO officials have stated quite clearly and quite publicly that they did not forward the letter to the Prime Minister's Office.
When the Prime Minister says that he never received the letter, never read the letter, he is absolutely telling the truth. What my friend is trying to do is make this into some sort of a political witch hunt or a smear campaign to try to connect the dots between the current Prime Minister and the Schreiber-Mulroney affair, which is an affairs that stems back 15 years.
This was an alleged incident that occurred back in 1993 and 1994, around those dates. For my hon. friend to even suggest that this government or this Prime Minister is in any way, shape or form connected to that incident is absolute lunacy. There is no connection whatsoever.
I again point out for my hon. colleague that there is a reason why prime ministers do not see letters such as this. We have to consider the source. The source in this case is someone of very questionable character. This is why that letter never appeared before the Prime Minister.