A stunning revelation came in question period today showing that when it comes to the Mulroney-Schreiber affair, the Liberals are as dirty, if not dirtier than the Conservatives.First off, Liberal MP Sue Barnes suggested that political contributions may be influcing the investigation:
Sue Barnes (London West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, Canadians deserve to have all the facts with regard to the Schreiber affair. If anyone involved in the Schreiber file has made contributions to the Prime Minister's 2002 leadership campaign, Canadians deserve to know, but the Prime Minister never revealed all his donors.
Will the Prime Minister guarantee that the public inquiry will examine all donations made by Mr. Schreiber to the Conservative Party, its predecessor parties, and all of the numerous leadership campaigns of those parties?
A fair question – albeit, it turns out, a hypocritical one. Because moments later the NDP’s ethics critic Pat Martin revealed the latest Liberal hypocrisy: the Liberal Party has taken thousands of dollars in contributions from Schreiber:
Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Speaker, if it is likely that Karlheinz Schreiber was greasing the wheels of commerce by lining the pockets of Tories, is it not just as likely he was greasing some Liberal wheels as well?
Why else would Marc Lalonde join Elmer MacKay in putting up a million dollars in bail for Karlheinz Schreiber? Why did Schreiber's Bear Head Industries donate $10,000 to the Liberals in 1993?
Sure enough, the Liberals took a sizable contribution from Bear Head Industries - of which Schreiber was the lone director - before starting their investigation of Mulroney.
It is entirely valid to ask whether Schreiber’s possible contributions to the Conservatives bias their investigation into the matter. But it is now crucial to know whether Schreiber’s actual contributions to the Liberal Party influenced their botched 1995 investigation which led to the increasingly suspect $2 million payout to Mulroney.
Seems Liberals will have to answer that question at the inquiry as well.
5 comments:
So you are saying they gave Mulroney 2 million for a measly 10 grand? That's a pretty big stretch. I don't think they love Cons that much. You NDPers sure got your back up over that "Greens Ahead" poll eh?
Nope, we sure don't as SES came out with this poll, which is more in normal range for NDP and for the Greens:
Cons. 35
Libs 34
NDP 17
BQ 9
Green 6
I think the point is lost on both of you Jan and Horse...as usual. The Liberals never his any contributions from Bear Head. None.
The Conservatives continue to hide "secret" their contributions. You know the "clean" and "accountable" conservatives.
As for Lalonde, when he left public office to re-open his Law practice at Stikeman Elliot, Schreiber was one of his largest corporate clients. He and his wife became personal fiends with the Schreibers.
Compare that to Elmer MacKay who lobbied for an arms factory in his province represented in turn by Schreiber. Then Elmer had his young son Petey run off to Germany to work for the same Thyssen company. Yadda. Yadda. That same Petey is in Cabinet today, along with his Unjustice Minister friend.
Oops, that should read "the Liberals never "hid" any contributions.
Barnes was right. Political contributions do matter. Not just the secret ones.
Transparency does not absolve one of wrong doing -- it merely makes it easlier to find.
The Liberals made their donations from Groupaction and Groupe Everest, etc. public. Was that the end of the story? No. That was just the tip of that particular iceburg.
Political contributions do matter. Harper should reveal his from 2002 and account for them.
Similarly, Liberals should account for the $10,000 they took from Schreiber and any potential connection to the botched investigation that came afterwards.
Liberals are not angels in all of this. It is too much to ask the party of Sponsorship for some honesty for once?
Post a Comment