Why I Suspect a Cover-Up

I heard someone on the news say today that the Liberals are going to try to twist the Mulroney-Schreiber investigation to smear the current government with cover-up allegations. This sort of spin drives me crazy. It's not a smear. There is strong reason to think that there may be a cover-up that goes deep in the Harper government. In particular, Peter MacKay may be implicated. We need to get to the bottom of this. If Harper, MacKay and others are cleared, that's great - but we can't let the cover-up ride the way we've allowed the Airbus scandal and Mulroney-Schreiber payments to go on and on until most of the witnesses are dead.

These are the few things we know to date about the cover-up:

- Mulroney is influential in the current government and with Stephen Harper. His influence is heightened by his importance to the old Progressive Conservative branch of the party, which was subsumed by the Reform-Alliance party.
- Mulroney swore under oath that "I had never had any dealings with [Schreiber]" when in fact he did.
- Mulroney and his spokesman have told several lies, including that his agreement with Schreiber was a legitimate consulting deal concerning a pasta business.
- Schreiber sent a letter to Harper last spring that detailed his allegations against Mulroney. Harper claims he never saw the letter.
- Elmer MacKay drafted a letter in 2006 for Schreiber; the letter attempted to absolve Mulroney of wrongdoing in his deals with Schreiber. Schreiber claims that he was coerced into signing the letter to prevent being extradited to Germany.
- Schreiber claims that Mulroney told him that he showed the 2006 letter to Harper, and that Harper and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson appeared willing to cooperate.
- Elmer MacKay sent at least one fax to the RCMP trying to get them to stop their investigation into the payments, and we know that this fax was sent from Defence Minister Peter MacKay's constituency office. (Given that Elmer is the former solicitor general, this communication is a pretty big deal.)
- The RCMP did indeed abandon their investigation, even though the press uncovered a huge amount of evidence of wrongdoing.
- Elmer MacKay is close to his son Peter MacKay, the Defence Minister.
- Peter MacKay has personal ties to Schreiber (Schreiber got him a job at Thyssen; Schreiber lived in his father's home).
- There's a mystery around who paid off Peter MacKay's large leadership campaign debt (estimated at $500,000).

Peter MacKay's denials sound pretty convincing at the moment, but it's easy for him to deny everything now when so little has come out. Here are some questions we need to get answers to:

- We know about the letter, the fax and Mulroney's lies, but what else did Elmer, Mulroney and others do to cover up the Schreiber-Mulroney deal?
- Did Peter's constituency staff help Elmer with the cover-up (other than helping him send the fax to the RCMP)?
- How involved was Elmer in the cover-up?
- Who else helped with the cover-up?
- Did Peter help Schreiber with Bear Head?
- How much money has the MacKay family received from Schreiber?
- Harper has admitted that he knows who paid off Peter MacKay's campaign debt: was it Schreiber who paid it off?
- Did Mulroney talk to Harper, Nicholson or anyone else in government about Schreiber? They say no, but it seems he must have: if not, what was the purpose of the 2006 letter?

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