Has the Oliphant inquiry changed your opinion of Brian Mulroney?

21 Comments

  • Mrs.D.Martin - 15 years ago

    I think ,he should be accountable for what he did. The prime minister of canada was takeing money from an ((arms dealer)).THIS GUY WAS A LORD OF WAR...I bet he wasn,t crying when he got the money. And he should have to pay back the money, he sued us for. Plus he should be stripped of his order of canada medal. He does not deserve to have it... If you or i were dealing with an arms dealer and takeing money from him. We would be in jail. So i think Mr. Mulroney should too. Shame on him. He never cared about us canadian people only himself. Mr free trade. As our jobs went south.He should be with Conrad Black. But as it will probally turn out he,ll get away with it, like the last time. Mr Mulroney you give canadians and the irish a bad image. HERE IS THE HEAD OF OUR COUNTRY DEALING WITH AN ARMS DEALER. AND WE HAVE KIDS IN CANADA SHOOTING EACH OTHER. DO NOT PASS GO AND GO STRAIGHT TO JAIL.. Mrs.D.Martin

  • Tam - 15 years ago

    I couldn't stand watching him when he was PM. I remember the New Year's interview with Barbara Frum. I changed channels. Then thought -- how sad that I do not want to see the PM and do not want to hear what he has to say. He just oozed -- I was disgusted then, and even more now.

  • Denis - 15 years ago

    The Toronto Star is beating this Mulrony vs Schreiber to death for political purposes of embaressing the Conservatives. This Oliphant inquirey serves only one purpose. MAKE MONEY FOR THE LAWYERS at the taxpayers expense. Shut it down. I'm sick of it, and tired of seeing it on the news and in the papers. I no longer care if everyone considers these two antagonists crooks. cheats, frauds. The only reason it is going ON and On and ON and ON and ON ad naseum is to MAKE MONEY FOR THE LAWYERS

    WHO CARES?

  • Peter Griffiths - 15 years ago

    Peter Griffiths says:
    May 17, 2009 at 8:15 pm
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    I have a few questions. Is it not true that leeway for pursuit of a line of questioning that goes beyond the original terms of reference, is granted when the defendant opens the door him/her-self? It seems to me that Mulroney opened up Airbus as a legitimate matter to include in this inquiry, by referencing it.

    As to what the 9 feds lawyers did or didn’t ask him, I think it is disingenuous of Mr. Wolson to suggest that as only Schreiber, Mulroney and Doucet knew about the money, those couldn’t inquire about it.

    I’m a logger, not a lawyer, but how about a straight-forward question, like “Did you ever receive money from KHS?”

    It has always amazed me that this simple question was never asked in the first go round. If Mulroney had said “No”, then he would have faced at least perjury charges . If he had answered “Yes” and then tried to talk about Pasta or LAV’s, the whole scam would have been exposed, dealt with and far in the past.

    I find it incredible that not one of those 9 hot-shots thought to ask that question. Although this is a cold land for many months, we are Canadians and don’t have Gulags. I don’t know who those 9 lawyers were but I suggest, if they are still in government today, they should be sent to Hans Island to reinforce Canada’s legal claims to our Arctic territory. For say 10 years.

    The thing that is really bothering me as this inquiry proceeds, is the focus on the Bearhead/LAV/UN deal.

    Think about it – Schreiber pays Mulroney for “work” on a deal that didn’t happen, but didn’t pay him for the sale of 34 Airbus planes that earned him $20 million, that did happen, on Mulroney’s watch, after he had stacked Air Canada’s board with people like Frank Moores?

    Remember the testimony about getting KHS faxed confirmation that 34 planes had been delivered?

    Many posters here and on other threads are complaining about the cost of this inquiry. I knew while watching Harper dodging around trying to exclude Airbus from the terms of reference that it was going to be a colossal waste of time and money.

    As to why the media was so compliant on the terms of reference, I think it as simple as the fact that Stevie Cameron was right – money did talk, just as it did in the awarding of tree farm licenses here in BC – but the entire fifth estate dumped on her, called her a rat. (The same character assassination used by the same media for David Radler in the Black trial.)

    Like others who have posted here, I want Mulroney to have to give us back the $2 million, pay for the cost of this and the Airbus case but I go further.

    The Airbus contract explicitly prohibited any “grease money” in the deal but it is on the record that Airbus gave $20 million of it to Schreiber. That was a breach of contract. I think Airbus should be required to repay the Canadian public at least $20 million (that was obviously tacked onto the cost) plus interest, plus damages.

    Here we come to the crux, as to why everyone and their dog (including Schreiber) has an interest in keeping Airbus out. There are only 2 major passenger jet manufacturers in the world. What would Canada do for aircraft in the event that Boeing hit the mat – ala GM and Chrysler? How smoothly would negotiations go if Canada, from all the nations buying planes, exposed the fact that Airbus routinely bribed whoever was necessary to win the contract?

    It is fact that Airbus, and Boeing, routinely use “grease money” to win their sales.

    In closing, if I were to have the opportunity to suggest a question for Mr. Wolson to pose to Mr. Mulrony it would be “Did he accept cash in envelopes from anyone else for “work” on Airbus, Bearhead or other projects?

    And finally – good on you, Stevie Cameron!

  • G PRice - 15 years ago

    You have asked the right question - but you will not receive the whole answer behind the response. Every time I see his face - I like him less, and it still keeps going down further.

    My dislike for him started when I wrote him a letter after he backed the Manitoba decision to translate all Manitoba laws into French at a cost to the taxpayer of millions of dollars - even though they would never be used in courts "because we live in a bilingual country". After that, the two faced pompous a--hole supported Quebec's Bill 101 - a unilingual law removing English from signs in that province.

    He is a lawyer - schooled to be slimey and to avoid the truth from being revealed when it is to his advantage. I can imagine that even lawyers despise him for lowering their reputation many more notches.

    I do give him credit though, he is smart. He knows that his buddies - who are lawyers, and judges who are also lawyers in kind - will not put him in jail for the wrong he has done. He also won't have to pay back the taxpayer money he was awarded in the last inquiry - even though the information that is now revealed would not allow that award to be paid. He is also so smart he realizes his buddies won't issue "costs" against him for this second expensive inquiry even though he should be found guilty. I'm sure his buddies will "award" him more taxpayer money for this further embarassment. Mulroney goes wah - wah - wah on TV and then turns around and laughs all the way to the bank. The "legal" system knows how to take care of their own.

    One of his self serving missions during his time as Prime Minister was to mark his place in history. I hope his wish is granted by becoming the first PM to do jail time.

    If he does, can we take away the government submitted portion of his pension??

  • Sandy MacNabb - 15 years ago

    Muldoon is a Quebec politician. No matter what the party, they're all the same. Untrustworthy and unethical.

  • I.T. - 15 years ago

    Mulroney can only be describe as an arrogant crook, he is a disgrace to Canada. He knew exactly what he was doing and thought he could get away with it. This S.O.B. shows Canadians why we should never trust politicians and lawyers, they are the scum of the earth. If there is a way to through the book at this guy, then we should. I wonder how many cash payments were made in the "Airbus" scandal, that went into Mulroney's safe.

  • OD2 - 15 years ago

    I agree with the previous writer. There is more to this story than we are getting. This inquiry raises more questions than it answers.

    We all have to wonder if the PM was on the take at that time, who else in a powerful political position in Canada was also on the take? KarlHeinz was working in Canada for some time, he clearly worked in cash payments, and he would not have been in the country doing nothing for months at a time. He was clearly approaching anyone he considered might be of use.

    Oliphant is being very polite to a former prime minister, so I doubt his report will really provide any insight. Even so, there is no doubt that Mulroney is once again showing his "lyin' Brian" side, and getting caught in lies as he tries to weasel his way out of this one. His answers are not credible. This sort of behaviour has not endeared him to the public in the past and won't work this time either. I must give him due respect as a former prime minister, but I don't have to like his slimey activities and lying.

    Mulroney is very slippery, very smooth, trying to appeal to our sympathies by bringing in his son "who was 10 years old at the time" (a non-sequeter if I ever heard one), and generally trying by every clever machination to put the best face on what he has done. But ...here's the bottom line....he was on the "take" and hiding his ill-gotten gains in cash in a private safety deposit box!

    Of course, one has to wonder, why would he risk his reputation by taking $225,000? It seems a paltry sum, for such risk. He apparently knew KarlHeinz had a bad reputation, yet he went ahead. Is this a small series of payments which were all part of a larger scheme? Was he in too deep already to refuse to cooperate? What other payments has he received that we don't know from KarlHeinz or others?

    Once the news is out that an influencial politician can be bought, the news travels quickly internationally...so he would have been approached by others, perhaps. Who else has he received money from?

    Did he indeed receive kickbacks on the Airbus deal? Have we taxpayers paid out millions in compensation to him for implicating him in the Airbus affair, but we should be getting the money back?

    I know we will never find out the answers to these larger questions.

  • Mark - 15 years ago

    My opinion of the man is now lower, but it was already pretty low.

    He blew the Free Trade deal by allowing corporations to ship the jobs south while preventing the workers from following them.

    When the deal expanded, the jobs are now in Mexico and the Third World. And at wages that are obscenely low, with no countervailing duties levied off the shipping nation according to the shortfalls in workers' rights to organize, health care, and the other overheads of North American industry.

    Canadian and American labor is left in the cold after having their heads busted for a century to achieve the wages and incomes that drove the wealth of the world out of the middle ages trap of money power versus powerless peasants.

    A far sighted man would have argued for placing Canada in the European market sphere, where we would be ideally placed to enter another huge economy and have two large economies for trading partners.

    But the thing I wonder most about the Brian is this:

    He did not disclose the secret cash "because nobody asked me about it in court."

    Ignore the obvious problem in that NOBODY KNEW the contents or location of these envelopes until the Brian became worried about doing time just like Al Capone, for income tax evasion.

    So SIX YEARS LATER, AND AFTER THE MULTI MILLION PAY OUT on his libel action, he declares this income.

    And that preposterously evasive response to questions leads me to another question:

    Mr Mulroney, are there any other payments of any size, from coffee swilling acquaintances from your time in office, or after? Do they know Harpo too?

    The law may be an ass, wearing procedural blinders, but the people in the jury of public opinion are smarter than donkeys.

    I suspect there is plenty of evil smelling smoke, and there is a fire somewhere behind the mirrors waiting to burn someone.

    Enter the clowns - stage righteous.

  • Art - 15 years ago

    Mr. Mulroney has tried to deceive us with his answers to the "wrong" questions. It must have seemed very strange that Karlheinz Schreiber would give him $225,000 for doing so little. i wonder how many other dealings he had in this manner.

  • Irish Ayes - 15 years ago

    Mulroney still has the gift of the gab. He's a ham at heart with maple syrup flowing through his veins. I was too young to appreciate his wit in the eighties. Now I realize that he was the Jay Leno of Parliament Hill. I still quote his famous phrase, "Ya dance with them that brung ya" when people question my loyalties. He's a lot like us.

  • mambacmaba - 15 years ago

    I am one of those Canadians who believe that, as prime minister, Mulroney dragged the Canadian economy kicking and screaming into the 21st century and that we are vastly better off for his courage in doing so. I do have to admit that watching the recent inquiry proceedings has tarnished my view of him as a man. However, my view of him as one of Canada's great prime ministers remains unchanged.

  • ray barker - 15 years ago

    Now that this phony sleaze-bag is outed do we get our 2million + costs back and get to toss him in Jail and confiscate assets aquired through illegal activity?

  • MJ Sansome - 15 years ago

    Brian M., former PM of Canada, defending himself, appears to be the arrogant S.O.B. (full caps please), secure in his belief that Canada and Canadians really admire him, and that he did no wrong. Are Canadians that gullible? Brian, listen up, you are a consommat fool. Cut your self-serving prose and save the country a pot full of money.

  • A Tinker - 15 years ago

    fAD and R Henry are true PCs, evidently, for whom the facts don't matter. I can just imagine the Right Honourable (what an unfortunate title for someone who isn't) Brian Mulroney quoting that most famous (infamous?) US President Richard M. Nixon: "I am not a crook!" His statements have been devised to mislead. Period. And that makes everything he says suspect. He ought to be ashamed of himself. His tears don't make him sympathetic, they make him pathetic. He's been caught in a lie and that's never fun for anyone. As a former PM he is a national disgrace.

  • D. W. Olie - 15 years ago

    The greatest P.M. we in Atlantic Ca. ever had he did everything he could to bring the area up to National standards with A.C.O.A. and Free Trade, we could now trade with the U.S.A..Dealing North and South had been our norm for well over 100 years, now we are able to avail our selves of that Market again thanks to the Hon.Former Prime Minister.

  • R Henry - 15 years ago

    Mulroney deserves the title of most despised Prime Minister in Canadian history. He was in it just to promote himself and make international corporate contacts so he could care less if he was ever defeated at the poles. Under his administration our national debt doubled and our credit rating plummeted to the point Canada was being referred to as a "financial banana republic". Domestic interest rates passed 20% and there were foreclosures all over the place. Mulroney didn't have the guts to stay and take his licking at the poles so he resigned and the voters elected two Conservative MP's in the election.

  • fAD - 15 years ago

    I liked Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and I sincerely hope that he has not tarnished his image. He was an imaginative leader who brought Canada prosperity of the kind that is felt today. My mind has not changed.

  • jack gunter - 15 years ago

    My over-riding impression of the inquiry is that Canada was very fortunate to have had a prime minister for a while of Mr Mulroney's obvious commercial skill and experience. Canadians who jump on the anti-Mulroney bandwagon should get real and stop paying so much attention to what looks to this visitor like the most ignorant and puerile media in the western world.

  • Annabelle Pitcher - 15 years ago

    Your poll falls short. You are asking the wrong question, with regards to Brian Mulroney for many many Canadians. Many of us NEVER liked him. So MANY of those who have answered, that their opinion hasn't changed...what we mean is: we never liked him...we never trusted him....and we still feel the same...no surprises. This man SOLD Canada down the river in more ways than there is space here to outline....beginning with Free Trade which has devastated our farmers....which was environmental INSANITY....trucking and flying food from other continents. There was NO concern or care for the future of the global environmental situation AT ALL with these rich lying greedy leaders like Mulroney. We've always known what he was after....more money for himself....and a pat on the back and more money, from the people who already have TOO much money...and want...surprise...more money for themselves, stripped off the backs of those who actually cared about this land and the future of the country and the planet for the sake of the next generations.

  • Jacqueline Bennett - 15 years ago

    What I find most disgusting about Brian M. performance is that he drags his kids into it and they are not at all responsible for his actions or decisions.

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