Mr. Speaker, I look forward as well to a public inquiry but I am not sure it would be scoped out broadly enough to include an examination of the money that went missing from Airbus to some individuals. I wish it would because it is clear that some money changed hands.
I know it is a bit inappropriate to mention names but I have always been intrigued by the notion that a role might have been played by Lucien Bouchard. I think an inquiry would clear his name if he was not involved at all. At the time of the Airbus transaction, Mr. Bouchard was the ambassador for Canada to France. It is no secret that Airbus is a consortium which involves France and it is probably no secret to conclude that Mr. Bouchard may have felt stronger allegiances to France than to Canada because as a separatist he does not have too many allegiances to this country. In fact, he became leader of the Parti Québécois some time later. I have always been curious.
Airbus at that time was anxious to establish a presence in the North American airplane market, especially the passenger market because it did not have any presence there and it was desperate to get a leghold on the North American market. Its competition was Boeing. If money did change hands, this is probably why.
At the same time, Air Canada had a very rigorous evaluation of the bids. A group evaluated the bids from Boeing and Airbus along a number of different lines, such as operational efficiency, capacity, fuel economy, price, et cetera. Airbus really sharpened its pencils and had a very good bid proposal because it wanted to penetrate the North American passenger airplane market. I am quite confident of that fact.
With respect to the point about the board of directors, I personally believe that Prime Minister Mulroney probably did not receive much directly in terms of the money from the Karlheinz Schreiber's of the world, but I do believe a lot of these other people did get some money. Sometimes I think it is a question of showing one's influence.
However, in my wildest dreams I cannot imagine the former prime minister picking up the phone and saying to the chairman of Air Canada that they really had to do this with Airbus. It goes beyond the realm of possibility in my mind.
The member for Winnipeg Centre touched on the question of the appointment of board directors sympathetic to Mr. Mulroney and other aspects. I wonder if he could comment on whether he believes Mr. Lucien Bouchard may have been involved.