ETHI Committee Meeting
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CANADA
Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics
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EVIDENCE
Thursday, February 14, 2008
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
[English]
Good afternoon, colleagues. This is the 17th meeting of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Our orders of the day are the study of the Mulroney Airbus settlement.
Mr. Hiebert.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just before we begin, I'd like to give notice of a motion. I know there's no 24 hours' notice for this motion, so I understand there's no debate and I'm not going to take very much time. But I just want to read it into the record and give copies to my colleagues, if I could. It will just take a moment. It's one paragraph.
No, I think we'll do this at the end of the meeting, especially since there's no proper notice. Okay? Thank you.
Our witness today is Mrs. Stevie Cameron, who is a journalist, author, and blogger, who has published extensively on the Mulroney Airbus libel settlement and related issues. Her books On the Take and The Last Amigo, the latter co-written with Harvey Cashore, have been extensively cited in the media and other accounts of the matters that give rise to the committee's study. She is currently a writer-at-large at The Globe and Mail, a contributing editor to Maclean's, and a monthly columnist at Elm Street magazine, of which she was founding editor.
Good afternoon, Mrs. Cameron.
On December 15, 2007, the committee provided me with a list of priority witnesses to be called. Your name was included initially, then dropped, and then came back again, which we had this little discussion about with the clerk—I think you're aware—but you are here today and we thank you kindly for accepting our invitation to appear.
I would ask the assistant clerk to please swear you in before we proceed.
The evidence I shall give on this examination shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
Thank you.
Mrs. Cameron, the matter before us is very serious, as you know, and we hope that you can help us clarify or better understand certain matters that have been brought before this committee. Refusal to answer a question is not an option. However, if you believe there is a valid reason that a question not be answered, I will hear your reasons and make a ruling. I would also remind you that anything you say before this committee is protected by parliamentary privilege and cannot be used against you in any other proceeding, legal or otherwise.
As a courtesy to our translators, I ask you not to speak too quickly. I will give you the time to make your full statement and to fully answer questions posed to you by the members of the committee.
Do you have any questions on what I have said so far?
Thank you.
I understand you do have a brief opening statement, and I invite you to address the committee now.
Thank you, Mr. Szabo.
Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, as the committee members know, I'm appearing today at the request of the committee, and I'm not sure I can help you in your deliberations. Although you do have a copy of my curriculum vitae, it does not describe my work on the Schreiber-Mulroney Airbus case that is before you now. I think it would be helpful to offer you a brief summary of what I did on this story and why I did it.
I started covering federal politics in the mid-1980s when the Ottawa Citizen—I was there for six years—formed a small investigative unit, and the publisher at the time, Paddy Sherman, asked me to join it. That was because I had broken the story of the John Turner and Pierre Trudeau last-minute patronage appointments as Mr. Trudeau left office in 1984.
I covered the new Conservative government for the Citizen until 1986, when I moved to The Globe and Mail in Toronto as a columnist and a national reporter.
After living in Ottawa for several years I knew many people here in all walks of life, and Phyllis Bruce, an Ottawa native and then an editor of Key Porter Books in Toronto, asked me to write an insider's guide to political life in Ottawa. The result was Ottawa Inside Out in 1989, which, among other things, documents the rise of the lobbying firms in the city, especially that of Frank Moores, the firm called Government Consultants International, or GCI.
At that time—well, not in 1989, much earlier than that—I was beginning to hear many rumours that Moores, a member of the Air Canada board, was lobbying on behalf of Airbus for the new Air Canada passenger planes.
I also wrote a major piece about the firm for The Globe and Mail's Report on Business Magazine, but was unable, at that time, to confirm that Moores and his partners were working for Airbus. After the article was published I received an interesting letter saying that Moores was about to make a fortune on the contract. I still have no idea who sent it to me. That tip is reproduced on my website.
Over the next few years, as you will see on my CV, I worked for CBC's the fifth estate, The Globe and Mail, and Maclean's magazine. They all assigned me stories on politics and the Conservative government, although I worked on many other kinds of stories as well.
In 1992 I worked for publishers Macfarlane Walter and Ross on On the Take, and then I returned to Maclean's, where I was a contributing editor.
By 1994 I continued to hear stories that massive amounts of money and secret commissions had been paid by German businesses to obtain federal contracts in Canada. The rumours involved companies that included, of course, Thyssen, Airbus Industrie, and MBB, Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm. The name associated with the deals and the rumours was Karlheinz Schreiber. I decided to try to determine whether secret commissions existed, and if so, who received the money.
My publishers, Macfarlane Walter and Ross, were interested in a book on this subject, and I decided the answers to our questions could lie in Europe. My search led me to Giorgio Pelossi, and several other people in Germany and Switzerland in 1995. I was thinking about that 1995.... I'm sorry, I didn't check it before I came, but it might have been 1996.
It also led me to the story of Bruce Verchere, Brian Mulroney's tax lawyer and the man who managed his blind trust when Mr. Mulroney was in Parliament.
The result was a story of fraud, a marriage, and international celebrities. Macfarlane Walter and Ross published the book in 1998. It was called Blue Trust.
My publishers and I felt I was getting closer and closer to solving the Airbus mystery, and in 1999 we decided to go ahead with a book. After Karlheinz Schreiber was arrested in Toronto later that same year, I began work on the project full-time. I invited Harvey Cashore, a producer at the fifth estate, to share the project with me, because he was as interested in the story as I was. Several months after I started, he joined in as a formal partner in the book.
Macfarlane Walter and Ross were once again my publishers, and I worked on the book until 2001. It was published in the spring of that year. It was called The Last Amigo. Some of that research that we assembled for that book as well as an excellent timeline of events is available on the CBC website. My own website also has a small section on The Last Amigo.
Nothing in these books has ever been challenged in court.
In conclusion, I should add that I have had no new information since these books were published. I've been hard at work on two books on the Robert Pickton serial murder case in British Columbia. I'm tabling here all four of the books that I've mentioned today, as well as transcripts of interviews and handwritten notes that I did for On The Take with François Martin.
If you would allow me to add a personal note, I am very fond of François Martin. I think very highly of him, and I'm very uncomfortable putting in notes of our interviews. But I think you will all understand why I felt obliged to do this and why I felt obliged to give you the handwritten notes as well, so you can see where the transcript comes from.
Thank you.
Thank you kindly.
We're going to proceed with questions from the members, and we'll see how it goes from there.
We're going to start with Mr. Dhaliwal, please.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Mrs. Cameron, and happy Valentine's Day to you.
You mentioned that you started in the mid-1980s. When was the first time you met Karlheinz Schreiber? What year was that?
Mr. Dhaliwal, I've never met him, except outside a courtroom when he was arrested in.... Or, gosh, maybe it was his bail hearing. I've only met him outside a courtroom, once.
Okay.
You have claimed that a Conservative fundraiser was offered a Senate seat by the late Mr. Guy Charbonneau in exchange for a contribution of $100,000 to account number 830 at Montreal Trust, and that fundraiser declined. Who was this fundraiser?
Mrs. Cameron, I'm having a little difficulty with the question myself. I'm going to ask Mr. Dhaliwal, if he could, without going any further here, to give a brief explanation as to why this is relevant to the matter before the committee.
Mr. Chair, I'm going to try to trace in my future questions whether this fund was transferred into the PC Canada Fund. I'm trying to link it to that account.
Yes, Mr. Dhaliwal. I heard a great deal about it from a Conservative Party fundraiser in Nova Scotia.
No. My understanding of that account is that it had nothing to do with the PC Canada Fund. It was a personal account for Mr. Mulroney.
In your book Blue Trust, which you mentioned, you write about the late Mr. Verchere, former Prime Minister Mulroney's tax lawyer, who tragically committed suicide. Mr. Verchere did legal work for the Swiss Bank Corporation, the same bank where Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Moores had subaccounts, and he sat on its board of directors, as well.
In this book, Blue Trust, you suggest that Mr. Verchere, Bernard Roy, David Angus, and Fred Doucet were all very aware of the cash top-ups to former Prime Minister Mulroney's salary. Is that still your understanding?
I would say yes, with a reservation. I haven't looked at that information in Blue Trust. I would really have to verify that by looking to confirm what you're saying, because I don't think I totally understand what you're asking me.
You said that suggested that.
I'm going to move to the next question.
Do you know if Mr. Verchere ever advised Mr. Schreiber on setting up any of his Swiss accounts?
The next question I'm going to ask is whether you know if Mr. Verchere ever advised Frank Moores on setting up the Swiss accounts.
Mr. Verchere was the director for the Swiss bank. The account set up by former Prime Minister Mulroney ended up at the same bank where Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Moores had those transfers. Do you think they were associated with one other?
You're correct that Mr. Verchere was on the board of the Swiss Bank Corporation. And you are correct in saying that he was Mr. Mulroney's tax lawyer and that he handled his blind trust. Mr. Verchere's own banking and the money he dealt with was usually done in Geneva at Pictet or Darier Hench, two other banks.
Do you know if the Swiss Bank Corporation ever approached GCI, Frank Moores, or Fred Doucet to make representations about possible business interests in Canada?
Did Mr. Verchere ever approach GCI, Frank Moores, or Fred Doucet to make representations about possible business interests in Canada?
Thank you.
In the years since Blue Trust came out, have you come across any other information? You said you haven't, but I am focusing on information relating to Mr. Verchere that would concern this committee's mandate.
Thank you for accepting our invitation, Ms. Cameron.
In the introduction to your book, The Last Amigo, you say that the central question is where the money went.
[English]
Where did the money go?
[Translation]
You say that's the central question, referring to secret commissions from Airbus. We know that $10 million went to Europeans and that the other $10 million apparently came from Canadian politicians. Did you answer that question? Do you know where the money went?
[English]
Yes, Madame Lavallée, I know where a lot of the money went. I don't want to be cute about this, but it is in this book. I've tracked the money. I think it was a bit more than $10 million on each side. But it was the entire sum of money for those payments, those secret commissions, up to the time that Harvey Cashore and I had the information. It would have ended around.... You know, I'd have to look up the date.
[Translation]
Your book isn't easy to find in the bookstores. For those people listening to us, could you say here where the money went? Which Canadian politicians received money? How much? And why?
[English]
It is a complicated money trail—there's no question about it. It would probably take the rest of this meeting to explain it. There were no sitting politicians that I know of. Mr. Moores had been a politician and he would say he was paid for his work. Fred Doucet received quite a lot of money, but after he left Mr. Mulroney's employment in the Prime Minister's Office he was working for a lobbying company.
The money was divided between Europeans and Canadians. The Canadians who received it were Gerry Doucet, Fred Doucet, Gary Ouellet, and Frank Moores. If memory serves, a few other people also received it. Part of the money—as I think Mr. Pelossi may have told you this morning—went to those people.
[Translation]
[English]
Well, by the time Harvey and I finished this book and it was published in 2001, all we knew was what this committee knows now. We knew that the diaries of Mr. Schreiber and the bank accounts we had showed money put into the Britan account of $500,000. And it showed the meetings that were set up between the men, which you all know about, and the withdrawals of the $300,000 in four parts: $100,000, $100,000, $50,000, $50,000, and then $200,000 remained in the account. We took this story up to 2001.
[Translation]
I'm asking you the question again. Before 1993, do you believe that Brian Mulroney received money directly or indirectly?
[English]
Madame Lavallée, I didn't know. I had heard the rumours. My job was to try to find out what happened to the money, not necessarily going to Mr. Mulroney particularly, but what happened to the money. As I said, I took it to that point. We did have that information about the $500,000, the $300,000, and so on, but beyond that I have no evidence.
[Translation]
Do you believe that the money Brian Mulroney received, the $300,000, the $225,000 or the $250,000—we don't exactly know what the amount was—was intended to thank him for services previously rendered, or whether Mr. Schreiber really instructed Mr. Mulroney to represent Thyssen internationally?
[English]
[Translation]
You've nevertheless done a lot of research. You're one of the people in Canada who has gathered together the most information. You're a specialist in the Airbus-Mulroney affair. I understand that you don't really feel like sharing all your thoughts with us. It's nevertheless impossible for you not to have an idea on the subject. You must have thought about it. Can you share your thoughts with us?
[English]
Madame Lavallée, I have thought about it. I lived this for many years. I'm very happy to be working on a serial killer.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Ms. Stevie Cameron: I'd tell you if I knew, if I had absolute knowledge, but I'm a journalist and I deal with the facts. As I told you in my introduction, my work hasn't been challenged, so it's important for me to tell you that I do not have more than I have. I have what I have. I haven't worked on this since 2001.
The CBC team has done a brilliant job of giving you more information. I think that's all I can say. In terms of the money that I saw Mr. Schreiber...what we now understand was given to Mr. Mulroney, I saw those withdrawals coming out of those accounts. I saw the set-up for meeting with Mr. Doucet. I saw many meetings with Mr. Doucet over the years--many. I have a lot of information on that, but in terms of what you really want to know, which is the money, what I have is what I have.
[Translation]
A number of individuals have denied the information that you've published in your books. Has anyone previously sued you?
[English]
[Translation]
[English]
[Translation]
[English]
If you look in the transcript, you will see that he is quite upset at one point because he can't find work. He had a terrible time finding a job after he became public. This material in On the Take that he gave me was not the first time I'd interviewed him. I included a story in your package that I wrote for The Globe and Mail in 1990, where he says many of the same things.
He's a very talented, bright man. I liked him very much; I still like him. I think he's a good person. I think he was terrified.
Thank you, Ms. Cameron, for being here.
Let me begin by saying thank you for the contribution you have made to the body of work we're dealing with today. I know we've all read your books, and we've all thought them very useful, at least as a base level of information, as a good starting point.
I also know it's been a great strain on you over the years. There's a website now being run by the PR firm that Brian Mulroney has hired. Virtually as we ask questions, it puts up its own sheets to try to discredit you and attack you in various ways. I understand that must be stressful.
Brian Mulroney said very clearly that he had absolutely nothing to do with the Airbus purchase, or the choice of Air Canada to purchase the Airbus product. Notwithstanding having the smoking gun, the silver bullet with you, do you believe in your own heart that there was political interference in the choice to purchase the Airbus product over the other airplanes that were being pitched to Air Canada at the time?
Do you believe that the Government of Canada should have settled the $2.1 million defamation suit against Brian Mulroney? Again, I'm asking for your personal opinion, Ms. Cameron, as something of an authority in the field.
I'm a reporter. You're asking me to make judgment calls. Given what we all know now, I think it was not a smart decision.
In your book On The Take you have a piece in which former Conservative cabinet minister Suzanne Blais-Grenier is testifying before a justice of the peace, dealing with a series of allegations really that Glen Kealey had made.
I have Glen Kealey's original transcript here and your document. This former Conservative cabinet minister testified to the existence of a secret PC fund that came from the mandatory 5% kickbacks extorted from businesses that won federal contracts. She said it was her belief that the money was routed to an offshore account, and she mentioned Luxembourg. I think we can probably safely assume she meant Liechtenstein.
Do you have any opinion on that?
I interviewed her, and she was very upset. Her political career was ruined, as we know. I don't have any information. She told me that. I was not able to prove that, except that we did know that there was a toll on many of the contracts during those years.
You mentioned Glen Kealy. He was one of the prime examples of that. He was asked for 5% back on a contract that he had hoped to get with the government.
I met a number of people who talked about that 5%, or whatever the percentage was, for government contracts. Again and again and again I heard about that.
You also document in your book that in her testimony to this justice of the peace in Ontario, she testified that the money, the 5% kickback, was for a retirement fund for Brian Mulroney. Do you remember her telling you that?
Thank you.
Regarding the RCMP, Ms. Cameron, I know you felt you had to take legal action and file a formal complaint against the RCMP because you felt you were threatened by a senior officer. You said he had made harmful statements about you and damaged your reputation and then suddenly turned around and withdrew one of the most key accusations, that you had met 686 times with the RCMP, when in actual fact it was a handful of times. Obviously you've given a great deal of thought to this, but what do you attribute this misinformation to? Why did the RCMP do so much personal damage to your reputation and your career?
This is an interesting and a difficult question. I think they were worried that the only remnant of their case on the Airbus-Thyssen-MBB secret commission was to charge MBB. There were no charges in Thyssen, and there were no charges in Airbus, and there were no Canadians charged. There were two Germans who were employees of MBB charged, and the company was charged, but that was the last little shred of that massive investigation. And there was a search warrant, which used an informant. I think they thought that if the informant....
I didn't know. I learned years and years later that I was the informant, and as soon as I learned that, I formally rejected the little gift they had given me—
—the status of an informant.
He threatened me—Superintendent Allan Matthews, who was in charge of this investigation—because he saw the case collapsing if the informant said it wasn't true, and what he had said about me wasn't true.
Do you think the RCMP dropped the matter too suddenly? Do you think it had anything to do with having to apologize to Brian Mulroney? Do you think the RCMP should reopen the investigation to finally get to the bottom of this on behalf of Canadians?
That's really not for me to say. I go back to my statement that I'm a reporter. But I know that, for my own use, for my own.... I don't know a lot about hiding money and laundering money, so I go to experts. I had a wonderful expert who helped me with this book, and I had a wonderful expert who also helped me, to some extent, with On the Take. These are people who do understand how money travels and what happens to it. I don't know that the RCMP had the benefit of expertise the way that I did. The man who helped me with this—
You're saying that the RCMP, after eight years of investigation, didn't have the ability or the skill or the expertise to conduct this investigation adequately?
I have no problem telling you who helped me with this. I thanked him in the introduction. It was a Canadian called Hans Marschdorf. Mr. Marschdorf is a forensic accountant. He had his own firm in Germany. He is German. He left that firm to become partner in charge for Price Waterhouse in Zurich. He worked in Zurich with my very old friend Bob Lindquist, who is the man who is widely considered to have invented forensic accounting. Bob Lindquist started his own firm in Toronto and helped me on a number of occasions on various things. He was fun. We always had a good time together, and—
Thank you, Mr. Chair; and thank you, Ms. Cameron, for appearing before us today.
I would like to bring us back to the study we're working on. I'd like to start by considering your involvement in the letter of request that was sent to the Swiss authorities that resulted in the $2.1 million settlement that Canadians had to pay.
You're undoubtedly aware that on February 25, 2004, a reporter by the name of Kirk Makin wrote an article in The Globe and Mail that identified you as an informant for the RCMP. You've made a couple of comments about your status as an informant. I don't really want to get into the debate about whether or not you were a confidential informant or a casual informant. I just really want to know if you provided information to the RCMP.
The RCMP came to see me in January 1995. They visited every reporter who worked on the Airbus story, and I was one of the people they went to see.
How many times did you meet with the RCMP over the course of the years that have transpired since 1995?
Three or four times.
I should tell you, Mr. Hiebert, that the man who was in charge of the RCMP investigation was also the press spokesperson, the media person for the RCMP at that time on this case. So we all dealt with him because he was the person we were told to talk to.
I met Fraser Fiegenwald. I don't remember who he was with. He was with another officer. That would have been, as I say, in January 1995.
No. On a slightly different topic, but associated with him, I met a couple of RCMP officers when there was a code of conduct inquiry into Mr. Fiegenwald's actions.
Okay, but in terms of anything relating to Airbus, to scandals outside the RCMP, it was only with Mr. Fiegenwald?
No, he usually had another officer with him. They travelled in a team to see all of us. And I don't remember the name of the man who was with him.
Okay, so there were just the two of them.
I want to know your motivation behind it. Why did you decide to give information to the RCMP?
I wanted information from the RCMP. When you're a reporter and you think they have the story, you go to where the story is. He was the media spokesperson, and we all hassled him endlessly. The information I gave him was public information.
That's an interesting thing you've raised. That was suggested to me by the RCMP, and I told them I didn't work that way. There was no quid for my quid pro quo here.
Well, I was interviewing them too. It worked both ways. But the thing is that what I volunteered for them was newspaper stories, clippings.
Well, it was 1995, a long time ago. When they came to see me, I didn't have any files at all. I didn't even have any clippings. I'd given them to another reporter who was working on the story because I was working on something else.
I told them that Alberta Report magazine had an interesting story. I've forgotten the name of the reporter who did it, but he had a very interesting story about all the companies in Alberta Mr. Schreiber ran for Franz Josef Strauss, and I think I probably said he might want to look at those. That would be one thing we talked about briefly. That's what I'm telling you, Mr. Hiebert, that this was on the public record; it was in a magazine.
I'm trying to understand what information you provided to the RCMP. Besides the Alberta companies, what else did you tell them during those meetings?
Did you have any second-hand information outside the media, outside Alberta Report or newspaper sources?
I was pretty careful about this. I was taking direction from my editors and my lawyer. This wasn't something that was careless on my part.
Again, you had no information you shared with the RCMP that was outside what was publicly available?
Not that I remember. Remember, it was a long time ago, and I haven't thought about it that much. No, not that I remember.
So anything they would have learned from you, they could have known by finding these German newspapers or by reading periodicals here in Canada?
Yes, sir.
One time, I do remember—it was very funny—Fraser Fiegenwald phoned me and asked me if I knew Mr. Mulroney's date of birth, and I told him he could look that up in the Canadian Parliamentary Guide.
She's a Department of Justice lawyer, or was at the time. Apparently, according to an RCMP affidavit, you met with her, I think on March 20, 2001.
If the affidavit said that I met with Ingrid Hutton.... The affidavit is absolutely correct, but I've already told you that the affidavit is full of mistakes.
Thank you, Mr. Hiebert.
We've had one round. We're going to do this again.
I am a little concerned that people are asking you about your general opinion, as opposed to your knowledge of facts or attributions to people. I think we should all sharpen up our questions to find out whether there's new information. We're going to assume the books.... They're on the public record.
Maybe I'll simply ask you, since these hearings started and your name became associated with potentially being one of the witnesses—and indeed you're one of the ten, other than the two principals—whether anybody has contacted you and offered you information or made any other statements to you that would influence your appearance before this committee.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Madam, the evidence we have is that you have written books. You've accused people of being involved with a lot of money, money that has gone somewhere, and you say that to date, no one has ever taken legal action against you for some of the statements or writings you've made. Is that correct?
When we look at names like Verchere, the two Doucets, Ouellet, Alford, these are people who are familiar to you in your investigative work.
You've never heard that name or of money being funnelled down there.
With the witnesses we've had before this committee, we have been surprised to hear their presentations. I think in terms of your investigation, you found some of them very evasive about money. There's the name Sam Wakim, for example. He's somebody who has been involved, been questioned as an associate of Mulroney, and he seemed to deny a lot of things about where money was going and whether there were special funds set up. Others, apparently, were also very evasive. But more and more we're learning about money here, money there.
Of the evidence you have seen in this committee so far, have you had difficulty in seeing it as truthful, as honest, in terms of the investigations you have made?
I hope you will understand that I haven't been able to watch all the proceedings. I haven't heard.... I have tried to follow them, but I have missed some of them, because I've been working in British Columbia on another book, as you know. I am surprised by the memories of some people, but then, as I'm showing you today, I don't remember everything either.
So you would think that through memory or whatever, some witnesses were evasive or somewhat misleading as they came before our committee.
I don't think I'm going to express an opinion on that, sir. I think the committee here would probably be in a better position to answer that question.
You mentioned earlier $300,000 in denominations different from what we have heard before this committee. You talked about $100,000, $100,000, $50,000, and $50,000. Do you have any more information in terms of that? Was that from the Bear Head account?
Actually, this is in one of the books I'm tabling. I was annotating it this morning and over the last day to try to remember everything, and I didn't get through it. The $500,000 was moved by Mr. Schreiber into the Britan account. I think you know that.
When Mr. Doucet and Mr. Schreiber, I think they've agreed, set up meetings for Mr. Schreiber to meet Mr. Mulroney, we found $100,000 withdrawn on one occasion—I guess that was the Mirabel meeting—and the other $100,000 was withdrawn. I don't remember whether they were done with the $50,000 and the $50,000 to add up to the third $100,000 or how they fit in sequence. But that's what we found.
The Harrington Lake meeting that Mr. Schreiber said was arranged by Fred Doucet, do you have any information on that meeting? Could you give us any evidence?
Mr. Doucet apparently denies that arrangement.
As to what Harvey and I had at the time, we didn't have Mr. Mulroney's confirmation that these meetings took place. What we had to say at that time, in 2001, was that the diary entries showed Mr. Doucet on this date, then they showed the withdrawal of the money--you know, these were Mr. Schreiber's diary entries--and then they matched the entries chronologically with these meetings that were set up.
So we assumed that the Britan account had been set up with $500,000, and on these occasions, when it looked as if Mr. Doucet was setting up meetings with Mr. Mulroney, that the money was transferred. But in 2001 we had not gotten then the confirmation from Mr. Schreiber, nor from Mr. Mulroney, that that's how it happened.
It's interesting; I once did speak German and I once did read German, because I went to school in Zurich when I was young and I lived in Zurich. But what I did in terms of dealing with all the German documents was to use a translator. It was amazing; after a while I found I could sort my way through these documents.
I just find it fascinating that you met with the RCMP for four to six hours, and all you talked about were newspaper clippings.
Well, Mr. Hiebert, it's not so interesting and fascinating as you think. That was in 1995, and none of us really knew anything about this case. It wasn't until I met Mr. Pelossi...who was very helpful. I went to see him, I went to see people in Germany.
This was long after I had those very brief meetings with the RCMP.
Okay.
You told us that you started to meet with the RCMP, specifically with Mr. Fiegenwald, in, I think you said, January of 1995.
We also know that Mr. Fiegenwald was the author of several drafts of the letter of request sent by justice department lawyer Kimberly Prost to the Swiss authorities. Did you ever see a copy of that letter before it was sent?
Okay.
Do you have any idea who was involved other than Mr. Fiegenwald in the drafting of that letter?
You have a treat ahead of you.
I believe I said—probably in this one—that the letter was leaked, I understand, by Mr. Mulroney's team to Philip Mathias.
I had hoped to get a copy of the letter. I had hoped to break the story for Maclean's. I worked very, very hard. I have vivid memories of meetings in the Maclean's boardroom with the lawyers, and the editor, Bob Lewis, and the other people there saying, “Go phone Mr. Fiegenwald again and ask him if he'll confirm.”
The story had already broken. You know that the story had broken in Berne, Switzerland, already. A Swiss reporter had the story. But the Canadians were all terrified to print it unless we could get it proved here.
That Mr. Mulroney was under investigation was the story. There was nothing more.
Do you have any evidence of who on...? You said that Brian Mulroney's “team” leaked the letter. Do you have any evidence of that?
Mr. Lavoie did speak to a public relations meeting, and he talked about the strategies of handling difficult issues, and bad news and so on. His strategy is always to get out ahead of the story--which I think is probably a tried and true PR strategy. I don't know.
Well, I understand that Mr. Fiegenwald was subsequently fired for sharing a copy of the letter of request with you.
I don't know that he was fired.
I certainly think it was uncomfortable for him to stay there, but he was put through two code of conduct inquiries and was cleared both times.
Yes, sir, I did. When you asked me how often I had seen the RCMP and I said that I'd seen Mr. Fiegenwald with another officer a few times, the other two times were with the people who were conducting code of conduct inquiries into him—and I have written about this.
No....
Well, he felt he had been indiscreet with me. He wasn't indiscreet enough, I fear. If he had been a bit more indiscreet, I would have had the story and Philip Mathias wouldn't. But I didn't have enough to publish.
Mr. Fiegenwald is a decent, honest man, and I think he felt he'd been indiscreet, but the editors at Maclean's will tell you that it wasn't enough for us, that we could publish it. He was investigated in two code of conduct inquiries. I spoke to the RCMP each time, with my lawyer present, and they determined he had not given me anything for which he could be dismissed or disciplined.
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I know that, when they do investigative journalism, a number of journalists record their conversations to ensure that the people who give them information don't contradict it later.
Did you do that in the case of certain persons whom you questioned?
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I did record every interview that they.... I asked everybody if we could record them. In Mr. Martin's case, he was so afraid that he didn't want to do it. So I double-teamed the interview with my research associate, Rod Macdonell, so that the two of us interviewed him and both took notes. I tried to do that on occasions like that. As you know, because I posted it on my blog, Rod also came with me to interview David Angus, and we both taped that. Mr. Angus taped it and had a lawyer present.
Rod Macdonell also has a law degree, and he taught media law at Concordia. I knew he would be a good person to help me with the interview with François Martin, who was not willing to be taped.
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You're not a stenographer. So I suppose you had to summarize. Did you show Mr. Martin those notes at the end of the interview?
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Do the notes that you sent us contain only your notes, or do they also contain those of Mr. Macdonell?
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That's right, you don't have his notes. They are in storage in Montreal and we couldn't get them quickly enough. He did do the summary that you have; it's the first short summary of all the various points that Mr. Martin made, but the full transcripts are what you have now.
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Ms. Cameron, you investigated this affair for years. You met with tens of individuals on the subject. Did you meet anyone who corroborated the remarks of Mr. Mulroney, who contends that he lobbied for Bear Head?
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Mr. Pelossi acknowledged that IAL, that Airbus obviously couldn't officially pay kickbacks to politicians or other persons. So it paid a commission to IAL. Mr. Schreiber took the money from IAL and distributed it to the individuals concerned: one-half in Germany and the other in Canada. Ultimately, Mr. Schreiber gave out the kickbacks, instead of Airbus, to secure the Canadian contracts.
Do you agree with Mr. Pelossi on that?
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Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Cameron, I thought I heard you say earlier, responding to a question from Carole Lavallée, something to the effect that no sitting politicians got any of the money from Airbus. Is that correct? Did you make that statement?
I said I didn't think any sitting politicians got money from Airbus. I can't quite remember how you asked me or what you asked me.
It was actually Ms. Lavallée who asked the question.
Do you think any sitting politicians at the time got any money from Bear Head?
The people who received the money, to my knowledge, were the people I've mentioned. The only person outside that group, if you're talking about Canadians, was Gayle Christie, who was a member of the board of Air Canada. Mr. Schreiber's records show a $60,000 amount for her. I didn't ask her, but Harvey Cashore asked her, and she thought it was for a fundraiser.
Ms. Cameron, this committee is charged with examining whether or not there was any wrongdoing by any public officials, related to Airbus, related to Bear Head. We've heard from witnesses for the last three weeks, and so far not a single one of them has provided any new evidence of wrongdoing by any public official.
We know that the RCMP investigated this matter for eight years and determined that no public official had done anything wrong. I'm now asking you if you have any evidence that any public official was involved in any wrongdoing with respect to Bear Head or Airbus.
Mr. Hiebert, I have to tell you I'm a journalist. I am not a judge; I'm not a prosecutor; I'm not a lawyer. I record what I know, and what I know is in that book. That's all I can say to you.
You're telling me that you have no evidence to offer this committee of any wrongdoing, no information that wasn't available to the RCMP at the time.
You can't buy it, anyway, Mr. Hiebert. It was not a successful book, and I think it was remaindered years ago. This is not a plug for my book. I'm telling you that this is a very complete record up to 2001 of Mr. Schreiber's activities.
The Last Amigo refers to Mr. Schreiber; it doesn't refer to Mr. Mulroney. The word “amigo” means he was one of Franz Josef Strauss' amigos.
Yes, but you must remember I worked on the book with Harvey Cashore, who has interviewed Mr. Schreiber extensively.
Just to summarize, whether it's in your book or based on your own research, do you have any evidence of any wrongdoing by any public official?
It isn't a yes or no question, Mr. Hiebert. It is an issue of what my job is. My job is not to be a judge, a juror, or a lawyer. I'm a reporter. I'm telling you what I found.
I'm not asking you to judge anybody. I'm asking you to tell us if you have evidence of any wrongdoing.
I think that my work speaks for itself. I think it's a comprehensive discussion of where the money went, who got it, how much they made. It's all there.
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Mr. Chairman, I want to tell Ms. Cameron that not everybody shares the rather skeptical viewpoint that my Conservative Party colleague just expressed on the value of her work. In his recent report, David Johnston tells us that the entire question of the facts surrounding the Airbus affair is well-tilled ground. That's his expression.
To prove that the facts concerning the Airbus affair are public knowledge and to explain why he will exclude them from the mandate of an eventual commission of inquiry, he cites Stevie Cameron's books. So the authority chosen by the Conservatives to establish the so-called frame of reference of an eventual commission of inquiry cites, in footnote 4, the two books by Ms. Cameron and the two books by William Kaplan as evidence that he has for saying that it is unnecessary to examine the Airbus affair. That's quite surprising, and I wanted to share that information with my colleague Mr. Hiebert, who clearly has not yet had the opportunity to read Mr. Johnston's report.
Mr. Chairman, I'm putting my question to Ms. Cameron. Is there anything in those books that, in her view, can logically lead to the conclusion that we no longer need to investigate the Airbus-Mulroney-Schreiber affair?
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That is our opinion as well, Mr. Chairman.
She explained to us earlier that she had worked with Rod Macdonell, a journalist I had the pleasure to meet who, like Ms. Cameron, is considered an outstanding investigative reporter. I was surprised to learn—because I didn't know it before coming here today—that the notes she filed with the committee—which will no doubt be translated before they're distributed—contain not only her own notes of her conversations with François Martin, but also Mr. Macdonell's notes and description. That reassures me a great deal because, contrary to what our witness might think, some individuals attacked her work very recently following Mr. Martin's appearance before this committee exactly one week ago.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I want to say that Ms. Cameron is showing rare courage and exemplary honesty. The few journalists whom I've heard express at times vehement criticisms of her work were people who didn't do the essential part of what we've been trying to do from the outset, that is to say to hear both sides and to come to the best possible decision based on the evidence we have.
That is what she has tried to do as a journalist, and I think it is important to thank her for what she has done. All we can try to do as a group is to be the first line of defence of our parliamentary institutions.
Thank you, Ms. Cameron.
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I would simply add that Ms. Cameron is being modest when she says that The Last Amigo might be in the bargain bins. On the Take, a book that I found very useful, is actually the most successful political book in Canadian history. It sold 200,000 copies in the first two years and whetted the appetite of a great many Canadians to investigate this scandal further. We on this side of the committee table are not satisfied with Mr. Johnston's findings that we don't need to investigate further, an opinion that perhaps you share, Mr. Hiebert.
I would like to use the time we have left to ask you a little more about your problems with the Mounties. What is the status of the complaint that you filed in 2005?
I think that complaint is dead, and I don't think I have any energy left to go after them again. We all have heard a great deal about the public complaints commission. I realize that, for my part, anyway, everything I heard is borne out by what happened to me.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Thibault.
First of all, Mrs. Cameron, I'm going to rephrase the question that Mr. Hiebert asked and let Canadians be their own judge, because you're not a judge or a lawyer.
Are you aware of any political person or any member of the crown corporation who received any money through Mr. Schreiber?
I apologize. I would actually have to go through my books. I can't answer that right away. I just really am not so sure. I think I'd have to have a look.
How about any person on the board of the crown corporation, on the board of Air Canada? Are you aware of any person receiving money?
Mr. Moores, of course, received millions of dollars. He was on the board of Air Canada. But he did have to resign from the board of Air Canada, as we know. It was thanks to a story from my former colleague Mr. Fife that he resigned.
There are others, probably, but in this room, in this situation, I would really be much more comfortable looking that up and letting you know.
Sure.
Were you able to count the round figure? They were talking about $20 million or $30 million of kickbacks or success fees, or whatever they want to call it. Have you accounted for a certain number of dollars?
Yes, we have counted that money. It's about $25 million. Mr. Schreiber divided it very evenly, right down the middle, to the penny, from the banking records we've seen, between the Europeans and the Canadians. I think Mr. Pelossi told you this morning, if I'm not mistaken, that Mr. Schreiber told him—this is what somebody said to somebody, so take that for what it's worth—that a quarter was for Mr. Strauss, a quarter was for Mr. Mulroney, a quarter was for the Canadian lobbyists, and a quarter was for the Europeans involved in the case.
Thank you.
I have some quick snappers, Madame Cameron. Thank you for coming, and don't worry about not being sued for your work. It's no great pleasure.
You talked about the Bank of Montreal account 830 that was managed or fundraised by Mr. Charbonneau.
No, I don't know. It was when Mr. Mulroney was running for the leadership that it started. It was Nova Scotia fundraisers who first told me about it, and then an Ontario one.
He told me he didn't always go, and I think you'll find it in the transcripts I gave you today. He said sometimes Bonnie Brownlee went. I called Bonnie Brownlee, who was Mrs. Mulroney's assistant, and she said yes.... I was on a television show with Robby McRobb, who was sort of a person who did household chores and errands....
I know we're running out of time, but have you ever heard the term for Fred Doucet as Brian Mulroney's “money man”?
I tried very hard to find him in those years that I was working on this book, and at that time we thought he was maybe in France. We'd heard he might be in the south of France someplace, but—
No, I didn't hear he was in Toulouse. But I was able to talk to Claude Taylor, and I wasn't able to speak to Mr. Jeanniot.
As the chair, I often get tidbits from people across the country, and it did come in that it was Toulouse, France, which happens to be where Airbus aircraft are manufactured.
When you found out that 13 of the 15 members of the board of directors of Air Canada were replaced by Mr. Mulroney, did that cause you any concern?
I reported on it at the time. I think I was working for the Ottawa Citizen at that time, and I reported on that story.
We could pursue this, but I think it would take much more time than we have.
I want to thank you on behalf of the committee. I know, just since we've started, I have some 10,000 pages of documents that have been provided to me. I'm sure you have boxes and boxes of documents.
It's a complicated issue. It's multi-dimensional. It makes it hard to sleep, too, I'm sure, because it sure does for me.
I want to thank you for appearing and thank you for giving us the foundation on which we are trying to do our work and trying to provide the best information possible within the resources and the tools that we have, so that the next stage, whatever that might be, will be the final chapter of this book.