Ethics chairman threatens to subpoena Mulroney

The chairman of the Commons ethics committee is pressing former prime minister Brian Mulroney to testify for a second time on his dealings with businessman Karlheinz Schreiber — and threatening to subpoena him if he won't come voluntarily.

"Mr. Mulroney's attendance before the committee is vital to our work," Liberal MP Paul Szabo said in an interview Monday.

"There's quite a number of questions that have come up as a consequence of the testimony of other persons.… Some of the points are certainly important to clarify."

Szabo said he's faxed a letter to Mulroney's lawyer, Guy Pratte, asking for assurance that Mulroney, who appeared before the ethics panel in December, will return on Feb. 28.

If no such assurance is forthcoming by this Friday, the letter warned, "a summons for his appearance may be issued."

Pratte did not return phone calls Monday. In past correspondence with the committee, he has raised questions about whether Mulroney was treated fairly in December and suggested he may not come back.   

The committee is looking into the former business relationship between Schreiber and Mulroney, including the cash payments Mulroney accepted from the German-Canadian businessman during the early 1990s.

Schreiber, who is fighting extradition to Germany to face fraud and other charges, said Mulroney did nothing to earn the $300,000 he paid him. Mulroney said he received $225,000 for acting as a lobbyist for a German arms company on behalf of Schreiber.

Szabo said he's already dispatched a separate summons demanding that Mulroney provide any documents he has that could shed light on two key questions:

• Exactly what lobbying activities Mulroney undertook with foreign politicians and officials on Schreiber's behalf.
• What Mulroney did with $75,000 in cash that he received from Schreiber and kept in a safety deposit box at his home. The money was the first of several payments to Mulroney by Schreiber.

Mulroney provided no paperwork when he testified in December to indicate how the money in the safety deposit box was spent, nor did he provide any documentation about his lobbying efforts abroad.

Szabo said he's hopeful Mulroney will agree to show up in person on Feb. 28. If he doesn't, the committee chairman said he'll consult other members of the panel to see if an additional summons should be served to compel him to appear.

"He is one of the principals [in the affair] and the committee is trying to get the truth," Szabo said.

'I wouldn't vote to summons a former prime minister'

But other panel members, including some other Liberals, think it might be better to simply drop the matter if Mulroney balks at showing up.

"I wouldn't vote to summons a former prime minister," said Liberal MP Brian Murphy. "We're not a criminal court."

Another Grit, Robert Thibault, said it may be preferable for the committee to wrap up its work and make way for the full-scale public inquiry promised by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

"That's the way we're going to get to the bottom of this thing," said Thibault. "We can't do it as a committee."

A complicating factor for MPs is that they will be in the midst of a series of confidence votes on the federal budget due to be tabled Feb. 26.

Szabo said he's been conscious since committee hearings started that MPs could find themselves up against an electoral deadline.

He hopes to table at least an interim report by March 4 and clear the way for Harper to launch the broader public inquiry.