Information & Ethics committee  As I have mentioned, Mr. Chairman, there is a procedure by which lawyers can move before the court to set aside an agreement based upon failure to make full disclosure. Whether it should take place in this case is a matter for the justice department in terms of their legal analysis and of course a question for the government of the day as to whether they wish to do so.

Information & Ethics committee  As I mentioned in answer to an earlier question, I don't believe there would have been a recommendation to settle on these terms had we known about that cash. It might have settled for other reasons, because as you've said, the settlement was all about the language used, and that hasn't changed.

Information & Ethics committee  On Saturday, November 4, 1995, I was telephoned at home by Roger Tassé. That was when I first learned of the letter.

Information & Ethics committee  We looked into that. When I say “we”, I mean that I met with the deputy minister or senior officials on Monday, November 6. I read the letter for myself. The request by Mr. Mulroney's lawyers was to withdraw it. When I asked about that potential course of action I was told that, in effect, it's already spent, it's been acted upon, it's been served on the bank, it's been served on the account holders.

Information & Ethics committee  No. I don't recall any discussion in caucus about this. Certainly what motivated me was doing the best I could in the interests of all parties. The government...Mr. Mulroney's lawyers had a complaint about the language used. The RCMP wanted to maintain its investigation and not have that undermined.

Information & Ethics committee  Who leaked the letter to the Swiss authorities? It wasn't leaked; it was sent over. The protocol is that a Canadian consular official then provides a copy to the Swiss authorities and to the bank and to the account holders. So that wasn't a leak; that was a delivery. The question is, who leaked the letter to the Financial Post?

Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Mulcair, my concern as Attorney General for Canada and Minister of Justice, together with Mr. Gray, for the government side in this civil litigation was to deal with it properly, in keeping with the opinion of our lawyers. Until January 2, the lawyers said we had a case. After it was discovered that the RCMP officer had revealed this information to a third party, they told me we did not.

Information & Ethics committee  This was my recommendation to the government, after I received the analysis from the lawyers involved in this case. What did we do? We dealt with the litigation, we asked Mr. Mulroney some questions and we accepted his testimony as a former prime minister of Canada.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm sure that Mr. Gray, like myself, examined the facts presented in court to determine whether or not we could win. Once, I was told that a member of the RCMP revealed—

Information & Ethics committee  No, that was a reality in court.

Information & Ethics committee  May I quarrel with your premise, sir, just for a moment? I didn't start an investigation; the RCMP did. And we didn't pull the plug on the investigation; we settled the lawsuit. With those two clarifications, my answer to your questions--

Information & Ethics committee  No.

Information & Ethics committee  No.

Information & Ethics committee  No.

Information & Ethics committee  Let me address both questions. First of all, the letters to Schreiber and Moores were sent as a matter of logic and as a matter of law. The advice I had from the department, with which I agreed, was that the gist of the reason we apologized to Mr. Mulroney was the language used in the letter of request, and if you read that language, you'll see it was conclusory.