Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's knowledge and his flushing out of some of the details about the Airbus sale which added to the debate.
I will simply say that Mr. Bouchard's name has come up a number of times in our inquiry. We do not know the extent of his involvement but I too would be very interested to learn what influence he may have exerted as the ambassador to France. I have no doubt that he was involved or included in this process in some way.
I did not have time in my speech to deal with where the money went but there were millions of dollars of grease money. It was not unusual for European companies at that time to realize that in order to grease the wheels of commerce for a sale of that size they had to sprinkle some money around. In this case it was $20 million, about $10 million on the European side and $10 million on the Canadian side. We do not know who the beneficiaries were of that grease money.
We have a better idea of where the commissions went. They went to Frank Moores and GCI. Some have alleged that GCI was a lobby firm set up by Brian Mulroney's closest associates to act as a piggy bank, to hold the loot until such time as the smoke cleared and the beneficiaries could avail themselves of the loot. There were foreign bank accounts.
It is extremely complex, which this is why a public inquiry may be able to put the puck in the net where we can only move the puck down the ice.