Hacks & Wonks

And Schreiber has just let the air out of the committee....

"Schreiber, freed on bail by the Ontario Court of Appeal, told the Commons committee Tuesday that he made a deal on June 23, 1993, to work with then-prime minister Brian Mulroney on a future project -- but no financial compensation was discussed."


No compensation and a verbal agreement to "work" together sometime.

Jeez, hack, lets work together sometime eh? I think we could make some money...

There is a growing issue of clarifying the whether something is criminal fraud or unethical improprietry or simply bad judgement. The use of criminal law as a tool to deal with every accusation is roughly equivalent to always using a chain saw to carve the Christmas turkey

Watch Thursday for another example

This whole thing is growing tiresome. I'm tired of Schreiber playing games with us and dodging deportation (successfully). I'm tired of Martin the Liberals desperately trying to turn this into Ad-scam II. I'm tired of our tax dollars being wasted on all this crap. Deport the fucker and be done with it.

Anon makes the differentiation between criminality and ethics...

How is it unethical to plan for your future for when you have left office?

Failure to secure income would be irresponsible, one would think.

I never leave a job without securing future employment...Why should the Pm?

I'll re-post my comments from Calgary Grit's site because they appear relevant here.

While ethics is somewhat of a relative term, its quite clear that if Schreiber's testimony were true -- that the money was for future dealings only and not to influence the government of the day -- there is no ethical misconduct. At least not by law and within the scope of the legislation that was in place at the time:

1) No member of the House of Commons shall receive or agree to receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, for services rendered or to be rendered to any person, either by the member or another person,

(a) in relation to any bill, proceeding, contract, claim, controversy, charge, accusation, arrest or other matter before the Senate or the House of Commons or a committee of either House; or

(b) for the purpose of influencing or attempting to influence any member of either House.

Given that both (a) and (b) do not apply in this case, it would be next to impossible to find Mr. Mulroney in violation.

Also, its perfectly legitimate and legal for a sitting MP to earn money on other ventures (Paul Martin and Canada Steamship Lines ring a bell?) Mulroney could be found to be in violation only if the compensation he recieved was directly related to or influenced by issues before the House at the time he was an MP.

Don't just take my junior legal opinion though. Almost every expert asked today confirmed the same. (CBC, CTV, The Verdict, etc.)

Finally - the kicker. Even if the committee found Mulroney to be in violation of the ethics legislation that existed at the time, lets take a look at how he would be penalized:

Every member of the House of Commons who contravenes subsection (1) is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine of not less than five hundred dollars and not more than two thousand dollars and shall, for five years after conviction of that offence, be disqualified from being a member of the House of Commons and from holding any office in the federal public administration.

How about them apples? So, the committee and Public Inquiry could spend between $5 - $60 million dollars to fine Mulroney a maximum of $2000. Which they can't because he did nothing wrong.

Grenva makes some valid points on the Federal ethics issues. There are some similar but not identical issues in Manitoba. After looking at the legislation for a client who wanted to perform a "skewerdoer" I found that there were some serious loopholes which might be an impediment to a "roasting by statute" even though a public view would perhaps suggest that a transgression could have occurred.

The concerns cover three areas:

First, it remains an adversarial process wherein you really want to show some loss from a politician's actions or lack therof as opposed to the loss to the general good from the holding of an unclear interest.

Second, there is a hidden "get out of jail" card if the party involved has earlier asked the Ethics person for a written opinion and fudged the circumstances just enough to get one.

Third, a lot of this political activity is not public nor does it stand up to anywhere near the same standards required of a paid government employee. Further, the only way to pursue a perceived transgression appears to be akin to a private prosecution.

I think public distaste for this type of problem is growing. It deserves a better tool and it is about time for something to happen.

Personally, I can't believe how unbelievably stupid the Liberals are opening this can of worms.

Harper even tried to warn them about the inherent dangers, but they still wouldn't take the hint.

Gosh, I wonder if Schreiber ever contributed to any Liberals?

I wonder if there are any more skeletons like that.

Geez, guys, ya think you might want to check that kinda thing out before running off half-cocked.

Thursday morning has come and gone. Manitoba's breach of trust case is in. I think it will be appealled rather than left to make new law. On the other hand it would probably have been appealed no matter what ther result.

If these same standards were to be applied to politicians we would have some very interesting times