Muddying Mulroney’s name with legalese

Sometimes you just have to wonder.

The federal Liberals and NDP think they have a new best friend in German businessman - and wanted man in Germany – Karlheinz Schreiber. He seems to be telling the Opposition members of the Commons ethics committee just what they want to hear about alleged dealings with former Tory MP Brian Mulroney.

And, like the teller of the Arabian Nights, Schreiber gets to stay around as long as he keeps chattering. The witness has been dazzling with allegations of this contact and that, each with even less documentation it seems.

The focus of the committee and all its venom – Mulroney – was scheduled to appear Thursday. I’m no fan of Brian Mulroney, and I’m sure many in Stephen Harper’s Tory government aren’t, either. His favoring of Quebec over Manitoba in a government air maintenance contract helped further alienate the west. Though he gave the Canadian Forces a higher profile, they didn’t get the budget to match. Successful in dealing the death-blow to apartheid in South Africa, he turned too quickly to counter-productive economic sanctions. Back in the 1970s and 80s, I used to go out of my way to buy South African canned pineapple. Nowadays, though North Vietnam still occupies the conquered south, I buy Vietnamese-made shirts. They are well-made and inexpensive, help the workers get better lives and wear down the effects of the occupation through relative financial well-being.

Though I didn’t get the opportunity to vote against Mulroney, most of my Pictonian relatives did. My uncle, Alvin Sinclair, was the Liberal candidate in the Central Nova byelection that brought Mulroney into Parliament in 1983. Alvin came to within about 3,000 votes of the parachuted candidate, while he seldom got closer than 5,000 to native Tory Elmer MacKay.

Except for the socially conservative Rosanne Skoke back in the 1990s, federal Liberal politicians don’t have much shelf-life in Pictou County.

All that said, Mulroney is getting an unfair deal in this Schreiber matter. It’s a business thing. Lawyers take money from questionable folks. It’s an occupational hazard. How dumb they could be in not documenting and reporting any such transactions is, admittedly, another question.

If there is a major concern over it all, it’s the duty of any complainant to call the cops. It’s a police job, not a pet project for a pack of partisan politicians out to embarrass the current Tory PM.

As the ethics committee continues its work, it makes an inquiry and a possible police investigation potentially muddier – meaning, if nothing substantial is found - again - the taint is still there for the former Tory PM. He has enough baggage to carry around.

As have I implied before, Liberals had better be careful – particularly if the matter of recent and not-so-recent national and international security issues ever arise.