Mulroney Follow Up

In a previous post, here, I encapsulated the events of a former Prime Minister who has/has not taken a couple of briefcases full of cash to get Air Canada to buy Airbus Industries aircraft back in the early 90’s. 

Things have developed since that post.  The current Prime Minister, Stephen "Steve" Harper found his cullions in a drawer somewhere, and has called for a federal enquiry into the episode.   Meanwhile, the former Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, through his fartcatchers, has essentially said, "Bring it on, bitch!" in the deep baritone that Canadians all know and don’t necessarily love.

In the House of Commons, the various opposition parties have been up on their back legs during Question Period, barking and squeaking about the affair.  The tone of Question Period has devolved over the years, but it is reaching a new low, even for the Canadian parliament.  The tenor of dialogue has degenerated into "You Suck!" followed by "No, You suck!"

Now our former PM is admitting that receiving the $300,000 from Karlheinz Schreiber, was the ‘silliest thing he has done’.  Meanwhile, Karlheinz Schreiber, comfortably ensconced in a Toronto jail, awaiting extradition, was brought to Ottawa to testify in front of a Parliamentary committee about his recollections of offering Mulroney $300,000, no, make that $500,000 for services over the period of time after Mulroney left office.

Schreiber also dropped 1200 pages of correspondence with Mulroney on the desks of the committee, two or three days before he was supposed to be shipped home to Germany to face other charges, like corruption, fraud and tax evasion.  Karlheinz is not keen on going home, so he’s dribbling out the goodies, to keep his enforced residency status completely Canadian.

Scanning the love letters, reporters who have been following this case since 1992, have said that there is nothing in them that either proves, disproves or taints anyone involved any more than they currently are.  Which leaves us with some known facts: 

Karlheinz Schreiber was/was not an agent for Airbus Industries, attempting to get the Canadian Government to pressure Air Canada to buy a whack of aircraft from Airbus, instead of Boeing.

Karlheinz Schreiber had $300,000 to $500,000 in slush funds available to help grease the wheels as needed and presumably access to more money to help oil the job along.

Brian Mulroney, or one of his buddies, Fred Doucet, Elmer McKay or Frank Moores, approached, or didn’t approach, Karlheinz Schreiber who either did or didn’t approach them, with an offer of money to assist the process of getting Air Canada to buy Airbus.

Air Canada bought a whack of Airbus Industries aircraft.  Until then, they had been a fan of Boeing and the Douglas Iron Works products, including the ghastly DC-9. 

Airlines don’t make that kind of change in their fleets, as the cost of spares, training, certification and retooling the stores and logistics chains, is very heavy.  It would be like your local GM dealer deciding over the course of the afternoon to sell only Nissans starting tomorrow:  It isn’t done lightly, or easily.

Karlheinz Schreiber is facing all kinds of badness in Germany.  Up until 1993, under German tax law, it was considered a perfectly legal deduction for corporations or individuals to declare on their taxes, the amount of bribes they paid to obtain business.  Apparently Karlheinz didn’t declare his previous bribe payments correctly, which is why he’s in trouble with the German tax authorities.

There’s too much stink to ignore the whole thing and not enough hard data to replace innuendo and curious happenstance.