His troubling conduct

It is possible there is an innocent explanation for Brian Mulroney’s decision, not long after stepping down as Prime Minister, to accept payments totalling $300,000, in cash, from Karlheinz Schreiber, the notorious international arms merchant and prolific dispenser, by his own account, of schmiergelder: bribes, in English. After this week’s Fifth Estate broadcast, it is now incumbent on Mr. Mulroney to offer it.

As a citizen, he has the right to be presumed innocent. As a former prime minister of Canada, he has the obligation to dispel growing doubts about his conduct, even in private life, that threaten to tarnish the office he once held.

They are at present only doubts: no one at this point can fairly accuse Mr. Mulroney of anything beyond appalling judgment in his business dealings with Mr. Schreiber. But they are reasonable doubts. To have accepted payments from a man of Mr. Schreiber’s repute is one thing. But to have accepted such payments, after he was Prime Minister, from the very man from whom he was accused of taking payments, in the so-called Airbus affair, while he was Prime Minister, raises suspicions that cannot be lightly dismissed.

Mr. Mulroney should tell the public:

1) Why the payments were in cash. This is highly unusual conduct in any business matter, to say nothing of one involving a former prime minister.

2) Why he testified in court, in his celebrated 1995 libel suit against the government of Canada, that he “had never had any dealings” with Mr. Schreiber. It is difficult to square this statement with the dealings that were later acknowledged to have taken place.

3) What the payments were for. Mr. Mulroney’s spokesman has said they were for promoting one of Mr. Schreiber’s business interests, involving pasta machines. Mr. Schreiber, interviewed by the Fifth Estate, appeared to find the suggestion amusing, noting that the only service Mr. Mulroney performed in this regard was to mail him a brochure.

4) When he paid taxes on them. Mr. Mulroney has said that he declared any payments received from Mr. Schreiber and “paid all income taxes on all monies owing.” In view of the unusual nature and circumstances of the payments, it would be in the public interest to know when.

5) What the two men discussed at a meeting at Harrington Lake, Quebec, a few days after Mr. Mulroney resigned as Prime Minister.

The Fifth Estate report contains other troubling revelations. The money Mr. Schreiber paid Mr. Mulroney, the program found, was drawn from a Swiss bank account, code-named BRITAN, set up a few weeks after he left office. That money was drawn from another account, which in turn was funded out of still a third account, in the name of Mr. Schreiber’s company International Aircraft Leasing. That account was used to hold secret commissions from Airbus Industries -- the same company that paid IAL $500,000 for each plane it sold to Air Canada.

There is no evidence that Mr. Mulroney knew the source of the money Mr. Schreiber paid him. But the circumstances of the payments again raise concerns that warrant further inquiries.

Those inquiries, as some Members of Parliament have begun to suggest, should include the RCMP. It was, recall, a letter from a Justice department lawyer to the Swiss authorities, requesting access to Mr. Schreiber’s accounts, that was the cause of Mr. Mulroney’s libel suit, after it was mysteriously leaked to the press. The government settled with Mr. Mulroney in 1997, with a payment of $2-million and a declaration that “based on the evidence received to date, any conclusions of wrongdoing by the former Prime Minister were -- and are -- unjustified.” In 2003, the RCMP closed its investigation into Mr. Mulroney’s possible involvement in the Airbus affair. It should be reopened.

Given Mr. Mulroney’s misleading testimony in the lawsuit it may even be considered whether the government ought not to sue to recover the damages it agreed to pay. That is not to say that Mr. Mulroney is guilty of anything. But it is unlikely that the government would have agreed to settle had it known of Mr. Mulroney’s dealings with Mr. Schreiber, whose existence he not only neglected to mention in court, but appeared expressly to deny.

Is it worth revisiting a matter that is now more than a decade old? Mr. Mulroney is 66 years of age. Four prime ministers have occupied the office since his departure. Is anything to be achieved by turning over this old soil?

Yes. For one thing, Mr. Mulroney remains highly influential in Conservative party circles, not least with the current Prime Minister. That alone makes it imperative to resolve any doubts that may have arisen in the public mind, to protect the current government from being tainted by association and to ensure that the impartial administration of justice is unquestioned.

More broadly, the citizens of Canada have a right to know that the people who govern them are acting in their best interests. That’s not a matter of one man’s character, but of systemic checks and balances. As we have learned in other matters, past actions may reveal present defects.