Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Eddie Greenspan Nails It - Hard

Karlheinz Schreiber's counsel, Eddie Greenspan, has put the Commons ethics committee on notice of just what it needs to look at to make sense of some of the major conflicts between his client's evidence and that of Brian Mulroney. From the G&M:

A lawyer for Karlheinz Schreiber has urged the House of Commons ethics committee to ask that former prime minister Brian Mulroney reveal details of his 1999 tax disclosure for the hundreds of thousands in cash he had received from the German-Canadian businessman.

In a letter to committee chair Paul Szabo, Toronto lawyer Edward Greenspan also urged the committee to seek Mr. Mulroney's banking records, his annual income-tax returns and all documents associated with the safety deposit boxes where Mr. Mulroney says he stored the cash he received from Mr. Schreiber.

In his letter, Mr. Greenspan points out that when Mr. Mulroney made his voluntary tax disclosure to the Canada Revenue Agency he was required to provide "all reasons explaining why the income was not previously reported."
"If Mr. Mulroney does not have possession or control of such documents or information, the committee must, as a matter of fairness, obtain Mr. Mulroney's executed consent to permit the committee to obtain this information directly from ... Canada Revenue Agency," Mr. Greenspan wrote in the letter dated Jan. 4.


I find it remarkable that Eddie Greenspan would have to write a letter pointing out the obvious but it's done and now the committee chairman will have a lot of explaining to do if he doesn't demand - and get - these core documents.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Technically, Le Brian is la right. Tax records are the last sacred thing in Canada.

Be that as it may, nothing prevent Le Brian from voluntarily producing his tax records. I expect him to do so in the interests of truth and full disclosure...

Anonymous said...

"Saving Face" is what this whole thing is about. Why would anyone think that the Committee Chairman is going to force Mulroney to hand over the documents when Mulroney can play his game of planting doubt. Why? It opens a can of worms for any Prime Minister of any bent coming behind. How many ex PM's do you hear calling for Mulroney to do the ethical thing? Same old, same old. Government officals become government officals because it is easier for them to gingerly stick their fingers in the pie, swill around and pull out some meat occasionaly.