Mulroney-Schreiber affair an insult to all law-abiding Canadians

To add insult to injury, after denying the allegations for years, Mulroney has finally admitted through his spokesperson, Luc Lavoie—that he made "a colossal mistake", but when he left politics in 1993, he was the head of a young family with certain lifestyle expectations – and not a rich man.

I too have certain lifestyle expectations. I would like to be able to pay my rent, purchase my groceries, pay my car lease and download the occasional iTune. I don't expect the Canadian public –or an international arms dealer for that matter-- to finance any of those activities. But then again, what do I know? The world of politics leaves me mystified.

I would assume that a poor boy from Baie Comeau, whose father was a paper mill electrician who worked extra shifts and ran a repair business on the side to earn extra money, would feel that a Prime Minister's salary (currently at $295,400) would constitute a good chunk of change. But, it appears Mulroney had bigger dreams and needed bigger revenue-making schemes. Even if that meant associating (in private) with a well-known German-Canadian arms dealer, who was instrumental in the Airbus scandal.

Before distancing himself from Mulroney this past weekend, Lavoie insisted that the $300,000 in payments (which Mulroney failed to pay taxes on until much later, but hey, that's none of our goddamn business) represented a retainer for his consulting services on --get this-- a military vehicle plant in Montreal and… a pasta business!

This is a man who Germany has been trying to extradite from Canada since 1999 on fraud charges and who openly admitted to paying politicians and key people bribes and kickbacks in order to further his employers' (German munitions companies) agendas, and we're to believe he paid Mulroney cash in a paper bag to help further his fettuccini venture? Come on! Who is naïve enough to believe that?

Well it turns out 3% of you. In a recent poll conducted by Innovative Research Group, 52% percent of respondents said that the Mulroney-Schreiber controversy had left them feeling less favourable about Mulroney, 44% said it made no difference and 3% said it left them feeling more favourable towards Mulroney. Who is this three percent? Aspiring politicians?

In the meantime, the inquiry continues, Schreiber is playing everybody like a fiddle, debate is raging over revelations that the original amount promised was $500,000 (who cares? Is Mulroney all of a sudden eligible for canonization because he apparently conned the con man?) and no resolution is expected anytime soon. In a recent interview on CTV, when anchor Lloyd Robertson asked Mulroney about the matter, Mulroney dismissed the cash as "the usual trash and trivia of politics". Brian, Lloyd was asking about the cash; not about you.