Questions someone really ought to ask Schreiber
1. You have claimed to have contributed $25,000 to Brian Mulroney’s leadership campaign as long ago as 1976. Is there any record of this? If not, why not? Was it in cash? Was the candidate aware of your contribution? Did you discuss it with him personally? Was he the only candidate you contributed to? Why did he merit your support? What did you hope to gain by it?...
2. In the late 1970s, you hired or otherwise sponsored a number of ministers in the Alberta provincial government, current and former, including a loan of $150,000 to the late Hugh Horner, then the deputy minister, which was never fully paid back. What were your objectives in this? Was the sale of Airbus aircraft to Pacific Western Airlines, then government-owned, one of them?
3. During a 1981 public inquiry into your land dealings in the Edmonton area, in which you allegedly profited, via your connections, from cabinet confidences, you said you saw nothing wrong with hiring former cabinet ministers to advance your interests with the governments in which they had just served. Indeed you said you planned to hire “more cabinet ministers in the near future from other provinces.” Which other former cabinet ministers did you hire?
4. In 1982, you invested, along with Franz Josef Strauss, the premier of Bavaria and chairman of Airbus Industrie, $369,000 in a Newfoundland property owned by Frank Moores, the former premier of Newfoundland and fundraiser for a group of Mulroney supporters who were then seeking to unseat the Conservative leader, Joe Clark. What was that money used for?
5. Describe your involvement in paying for anti-Clark delegates from Quebec to attend the leadership review conference in Winnipeg in 1983. Why did you do this? Was Mr. Mulroney aware of your assistance? When did he learn of it?
6. Did you contribute to Mr. Mulroney’s leadership campaign in 1983? Did you contribute to his own or the party’s campaign in 1984? If so, how much and in what form -- cash or other? Is there any record of this? Was Mr. Mulroney aware of it?
7. Describe how the Airbus deal worked. Why did Airbus agree to pay commissions to your company, International Aircraft Leasing, on the sale of planes to Air Canada, when the payment of such commissions was prohibited under the terms of the contract? Why did Airbus need your help? What services were you expected to perform? What services did you perform? What was Frank Moores’s involvement in the deal?
8. The same questions, with regard to the sale of helicopters to the Coast Guard, for which you were secretly paid commissions by Messerschmidt-Bolkow-Blohm.
9. The same questions, with regard to the funding of the Bear Head project to build light armoured vehicles in Canada, for which you were secretly paid a “success fee” by Thyssen Industrie.
10. Your bank records indicate that you were paid nearly $20-million in commissions on the Airbus deal, $4-million on the Bear Head project, and $1-million on the helicopter deal. What did you do with the money? How much went to Frank Moores and his company Government Consultants International? Where did the rest of it go? Your bank records indicate half of it was distributed in Canada. Your German lawyer has testified in Canadian court that it was used to pay Canadians. Who?
11. In 1999, you were a fugitive from German justice, living in Switzerland. You are a Canadian citizen. You are worth millions. Why, then, did Elmer MacKay come to Switzerland to bring you to Canada? Why did he buy your airline ticket? Is the timing, one day after the arrest of two Thyssen Industrie executives with whom you had conspired to bribe German politicians, a coincidence?
12. After your arrest in Canada in 1999, Marc Lalonde and Elmer MacKay each agreed to put up $100,000 to bail you out of jail. On your release, you made this statement in front of the television cameras: “It is, I think, a great pleasure to have friends. I have always had friends in my life. And I will never let a friend down. So they came here to get me out. I will never do anything to harm them.” What did you mean by the last sentence?
12/11/2007
related
Keep bookmarked posts here.
17 Comments
Good questions....I am more interested in questions 7 through 12 quite frankly.
But the opening questions on Hugh Horner and the ALberta stuff is interesting as well, to establish pattern.
The Joe Clark thing...sigh....would be nice to know but more as a historical curiosity. I know the foreign influence thing is critical, I am sure there is Chinese money floating around today, but I am more interested in the commissions on those three projects you mention.
Focus for the purpose of getting relevant answers.
Good questions if all of them go answered though.
All interesting questions - not sure they are relevant to the Ethics Comittee's mandate to review the Mulroney Airbus settlement (maybe for the inquiry).
Schreiber seems to be keen to talk to just about anyone. Do you have any keen live bloggers Inside The Queensway you could send over with the list to ask Schreiber directly?
Just get them to study up on the music of Manhattan Transfer, or watch Casablanca a few times, he seems to like both.
Since Casablanca's As time goes by has already been performed chez Schreiber, I'd suggest a re-enactment of the scene where the German officers are gathered around the piano singing Die Wacht am Rhein
Lieb' Vaterland, magst ruhig sein,
lieb' Vaterland, magst ruhig sein,
fest steht und treu die Wacht, die Wacht am Rhein!
Fest steht und treu die Wacht, die Wacht am Rhein!
Have it playing in the background on Schreiber's German hi-fi, and when the above chorus is finished, have the intrepid Maclean's reporter lead Karlheinz in a Victor Laslow-like resounding version of la Marseillaise (symbolizing Schreiber's led revolution from under the tyranny of the German legal system). Then they'll have KHS's confidence, and the answers will flow.
Why not? It worked for the Toronto Star in this story over the weekend (except they forget to ask any questions - maybe too much shnapps): A night at the Schreibers'
Derek,
Your reference to that Torstar story and the mention of Casablanca reminds me of something...
WHile KHS I am sure likes to think of himself as Rick, is he more of a Captain Renault?
Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Read through these quotes and find the most appropriate ones
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/quotes
Stephen,
If I was casting, KHS would be Senor Ferrari, owner of the Blue Parrot: "As the leader of all illegal activities in Casablanca, I am an influential and respected man" who ends his scenes while swatting flies in his bar.
I'd cast Mulroney as Rick and maybe Fred Doucet as Sgt. Renault, both profiting from the questionable activities undertaken at Rick's Cafe Americain.
We never find out what happens to either one when they leave Casablanca, Rick suggesting: "Louis, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship".
Maybe they never contemplated their past dealings with Senor Ferrari would come back to haunt them in their re-made lives, so many years later.
And of course, Major Strausser, who Rick killed off in the next to last scene, is the personification of Bear Head, the ugly German effort to expand its war capacity in foreign countries.
Capt. Renault's suggestion to the local law enforcement to "Arrest the usual suspects" to find out who killed Strausser indicates his complicity with Rick, who one should acknowledge, previously only met Strausser for drinks on a couple of occasions at the Cafe.
... Great Andrew.
... Hopefully, you will soon return to the National Post... which is the edge, my friend.
... Unlike Macleans, which is more of a Reader's Digest for self-satisfied old boomers.
It's sad to watch your daily fall from grace, Andrew. That you've hitched your credibility with the likes of Schreiber, Harvey Cashore, Stevie Cameron and Linda McGuaig speaks for itself.
You are the only person on the planet that still talks about Mulroney and Airbus. Your willingness to blindly accept the worst in people and lend credibility to conspiracy theories speaks volumes about your journalistic standing -- fit for Frank magazine and not much else.
I get the impression that Brian Mulroney being a crook happens to be one of the areas of percieved media wisdom that Andrew bought into in the 70s and 80s. Thus much like his irrational crusade against a meaningless resolution of parliament regarding quebec being a nation within a united Canada, and his man crush on Pierre Trudeau, Andrew's normal insightful takes on this particular issue are being obscured by his pre-existing beliefs and thus everything he writes on the subject is huffy, defensive and a contortionist act in which he attempts to play down any and all evidence to the contrary.
The opinions of the last two commenters notwithstanding, AC is on the same wavelength as many observers on this issue.
"anonymous'" comment: "You are the only person on the planet that still talks about Mulroney and Airbus." is silly on the face of it. Millions of Canadians still talk of a link of BM to Airbus.
And, not surprisingly, neither of the two actually attempts to rebut the legitimacy of AC list of Qs for KHS, but rather they engage quasi-ad hominem remarks that add nothing to the discussion nor do they provide constructive arguments for ending it.
One of the benefits from watching the televised Committee hearings, media scrums, and post political programs is the various positions being put forward by many of the PPG.
I have found many to be quite biased, and not based upon the same testimony I have watched.
For example, I don't find KHS's claims (what some media label as "nutty conspiracy theories") about how the RCMP and Justice dept. may have worked with the German prosecutors to facilitate his extradition to Germany to be that incredible.
Their investigation had been derailed by the $2.1 million lawsuit settlement, and there probably was less political will within Canada to pursue Airbus et al as vigorously post Justice Minister Alan Rock's humiliating public apology.
So, did the RCMP/Justice dept. help the Germans draft an extradition request, with a high likelihod of success within Canada based upon their knowledge, that may have contained some questionable material (according to KHS)? KHS suggested Canadian officials in effect wrote an extradition request to themselves (and we know how they embellished the Mulroney letter).
On one level, this allegation is not that much different than what actually happened to Maher Arar concerning a stalled RCMP investigation, sharing info with the Americans, and his rendition to a foreign country to obtain further info that could be used by the same officials back in Canada.
Would any of the same old tired PPG have believed this sequence of events if not for the subsequent Mahar Arar inquiry? Doubtful.
It’s all great fun really. Dusting off transgressions from back in the day in a search for political sleaze. And then we find it may exist. Shocking. Who knew?
As we’re intent on rummaging around in the days of disco, let’s drag poor Con north of the 49th and try him for the original sin…defrauding a couple of myopic old widows out of their Argus holdings. Mind you, if he hadn’t pulled off that coup, Con wouldn’t have accumulated sufficient capital to build the house of cards that propelled him into Carl Sandburg’s backyard. So it all came full circle in any event. As, in the balance of probabilities, it might for Brian. No need to waste gobs of taxpayer’s money on old news. The Right Honourable's hubris will win the day and gift the world a fresh indiscretion hung out like a fifty-cent piñata. No need to go for a long shot when the pickings are easy from five feet.
By Andrew's own logic, anyone who recieved money from Karlheinz Schreiber actually recieved dirty Airbus money. If KHS is a Macleans subscriber, its not only reasonable but our civic duty to ask Andrew about his own Airbus affairs.
As another example, Conrad Black was convicted of fraud. Similarly, anyone who has ever been in the employ of Conrad Black (i.e. Andrew) should also be investigated for fraud.
As Andrew says, even if there were no crimes committed, there are a number of ethical questions that need to be answered. We want answers Andrew. Its the public's right to know.
... Andrew, as the only Canadian journalist who appears not to be merely standing around with a microphone and make-up, I encourage you to keep on this. Ignore those cynical cowards who hide in the bushes, and attempt to condescendingly trivialise this obviously extensive web of corruption and cover-up.
"obviously extensive web of corruption and cover-up."
Along with the abuse of "..." everytime he posts and the questionable tactic of using his middle initial, Ian "G" Foulds makes some astounding claims.
During his testimony yesterday (Dec. 11), Mr. Schreiber alluded to the "big scheme" that he concocted for Airbus. He mentioned the name of Max Ward who was the owner of Wardair, and insinuated (as I understood it) that somehow the Airbus scheme consisted of getting Wardair to order Airbus planes (presumably at loss leader pricing). Apparently the competitive advantages gained by Wardair via the cost efficiencies of the Airbus planes would force Air Canada to also purchase the same planes in order to remain competitive with Wardair.
Who knows, perhaps the German government and/or Airbus Industries completely funded Wardair in order to get a "foot in the door" or as the "Trojan Horse" to get into North America.
I am flabbergasted that Mr. Schreiber's testimony that mentioned "Max Ward" went COMPLETELY UNREPORTED in the Canadian news media (according to a Google News search).
Is this scandal so large that it also includes the Canadian news media?
KHS left Mulroney some room to explain. Questions to Mulroney may be simpler: "Why did you accept the $300K?" for future unspecified services, a retainer. "Why cash?" KHS insisted on cash payments. Its legal tender. "What did you do for the money?" Nothing, he never asked for specific actions, he only discussed possible projects in vague terms like Bear HEad, theoretical, in the few times I met him. "Why did you wait to disclose the money to Rev Can?" As I did not perform any action for KHS, I wasnt sure when claim it; I viewed it as a retainer, and simply let the clock run down. Then I claimed it.
OF course, once Mulroney breaks cover, KHS will haul out his refuting hard evidence. Or will he? KHS has a strange need to protect people he views as great Canadians. He wants acceptance, to buy his way in, not destroy reputations. If Mulroney avoids taking cheap shots at KHS, he might catch the grace of KHS. KHS would perjure himself to the committee by withholding evidence, but given hes going to die in a German jail, it hardly matters, might even delay his extradition.
Further to my post above concerning the Wardair connection, further research shows that Wardair was a client of GCI until Mr. Moores had to step down due to conflict of interest after he was appointed to the Air Canada board of directors by Mulroney.
So it certainly is not out of the realm of possiblity that GCI/KHS received payments from Airbus for the Wardair purchase also... and to reiterate the above, sounds like it was all part of a larger scheme concocted by KHS to force Air Canada to purchase Airbus in order to "keep up" with Wardair.