Canadian political scandals rarely receive much ink or airtime from the American media. I'm sure the reaction of most Americans to any inquiry as to the "Mulroney-Schreiber Affair" would elicit a response along the lines of "the who-who affair".
But this is potentially a very big scandal still unfolding in Canada.
Brian Mulroney served as Prime Minister of Canada, head of our government, from September 1984 through June of 1993. As prime minister, Mulroney racked up several notable accomplishments along with some major defeats and embarrassments. He has been lauded for his support for the campaign to end Apartheid in South Africa as well as his progressive policies on the environment (for the day). His major policy achievements remain controversial though no government has made any serious attempt to reverse them: signing the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States and a major change in national sales taxes which replaced the old Manufacturer's Sales Tax with the Goods and Services Tax (GST). On the negative side of the balance sheet Mulroney's two failed attempts to amend the Canadian Constitution (the Meech Lake Accord which failed at the political level and the Charlottetown Accord which was soundly defeated in a referendum) and the numerous cabinet ministers who resigned from his government under clouds of suspicion had a lot to do with Mulroney's historically low approval ratings (9%) at the time of his resignation from office.
Anecdotally, I can tell you that as a 50 year old Canadian with almost 40 years of political involvement behind me, Mulroney is the only prime minister I ever heard assassination jokes about. (Canada has never had the head of its government assassinated.)
Now, years after Mulroney has left office, another political scandal harkening back to his days in office is causing him and his successor much discomfort.
Brian Mulroney was the last man to hold the prime ministers office as the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. That party fractured into multiple pieces partly as a result of Mulroney's failures and unpopularity. His failed attempts to amend the constitution and bring the province of Quebec on board as a signatory led to the departure from his party of several Quebec based members of parliament to form the seperatist Bloc Quebecois, a movement which still holds significant representation in the national parliament after six federal elections. The other major movement born out of disaffected Progressive Conservatives was the Western based Reform Party of Canada. Reform wanted to bring the party and the country further to the right of the political spectrum. The party ran candidates in three federal elections, becoming the Official Opposition party at its peak, before attempting to merge with the remaining rump of the Progressive Conservatives. That first attempt, through a process called the United Alternative created a new party called the Canadian Alliance (officially the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance party, but the acronym CCRAP quickly led them to abandon most of their name). The Alliance ran candidates in only one election, barely advancing the seat count of the old Reform Party. This led, finally, to the real merger of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance (the order of the words changed to avoid the CCRAP tag) into simply the Conservative Party of Canada.
After years in the wilderness, the Conservatives returned to power in 2006 with the election of current Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservative Party, in a minority parliament situation. Harper has since won re-election in 2008, but still only managed to secure another minority government.
In the interim, the details involving former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber slowly started to come to light. About a decade ago Canada's national police force the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) accused Mulroney and a provincial politician of accepting kickbacks fom Mr. Schreiber over the sale of Airbus passenger jets to Air Canada, then a publicly owned airline. Mulroney launched a very public lawsuit against the government for $50 million for defamation, and an out of court settlement won Mulroney a public apology and millions in legal fees.
Since then it has emerged that Mulroney did accept some $300,000 in cash payments from Schreiber (money exchanged hands in envelopes in places like New York city hotel rooms), though the two men disagree as to what the payments were for and Schreiber is reportedly suing Mulroney for the money claiming non-performance. At least one of the payments was made while Mulroney was still a sitting member of Canadian parliament, though after he'd left the prime minister's office.
A government inquiry into the whole sordid affair is now getting underway. Stephen Harper, current leader of the reconstituted Conservative Party and prime minister of Canada, has tried to distance himself from Mulroney to avoid being tarnished by any whiff of scandal. Reports say he has ordered his MPs to cut off all contact with Mulroney and his office approved a leak to the media claiming that Mulroney was no longer a member of the party. Mulroney's spokesman has denied that his boss had left the party, claiming that he would "always be a Conservative for his entire life".
A brouhaha has opened up within the party between Mulroney loyalists and the old Reform Party members who came into politics because of their loathing for the man.
The scandal, as it unfolds, could lead to criminal charges against a former Prime Minister of Canada, could lead to the fracturing of the Conservative Party of Canada that took a decade to recover, at least in part, from the last mortal blow Mulroney helped deliver to it and could alter the Canadian political landscape significantly. Of course, its also possible that the whole things will blow over, that Mulroney will not be found to have broken any laws and that the Conservatives will patch over their differences and carry on.
Still, one must say that the whole mess fails the smell test.
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Comments: 31
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 40 times in a row and I guess I'm just a gullible idiot.
I think in this case many American Gather members are being too polite to make a remark on the internal politics of their friend and ally to the north. Don't forget, folks, I have shown no restraint in commenting on your politics time and again in many, many articles. I can take as well as I give.
When questioned about corruption in her government once our late prime minister Indira Gandhi remarked that corruption is a universal phenomenon. Does that justify corruption? Further, I feel there is one fundamental difference in the corruption of our country and elsewhere. In most of the other countries you have to bribe a fellow to get something done out of the way for you. But in our country, India, you have to bribe the fellow to get even what you have a right to get. Aid meant for the poor goes mostly to the opulent because they can afford to bribe the guy in-charge of the distribution of the aid. That is probably the state of affairs in most of the Asian and African countries. The situation and the social order in general in the world cannot change unless people wake up, leave their complacency and act. The rant of people like you and I just falls to deaf ears. I wish I had the means and energy to mobilize and organize people. I hope someday someone would come along inspired by our writings!
dirty money! Wow next we will hear of your own Bernie Madoff! Keep us informed Rory!
I looks to me as though Canada has the same kine of crooks as we have in the US, Then only difference being the names. I have always kind of wished Canada was South of the US, I would have moved there years ago.
I have always thought of Canada as more laid back and easy going compared to the US.
As someone who is Canadian, trust me I wish we were south of the US whenever winter rolls around.
Roy: I know for a fact that you are not alone in your lack of broad Canadian knowledge. It has long been a well understood truism amongst Canadians that Americans had more outdated or false knowledge of Canada than real. One of our best known comedians, Rick Mercer, has a national comedy show on which he used to run a regular feature called "Talking to Americans" during which he would go to some American city and ask them to comment on made up Canadian news stories. Every week he would get more outrageous in the phony crap he'd make up about Canada, but he never had trouble finding Americans who would buy it lock, stock and barrel. Harvard professors and state governors made shockingly ignorant remarks in response to Mercer's ridiculous questions as he stared deadpan into the camera beside them.
Michael: Thanks, that was the goal.
Chuck: It would be hard to find the country that Canada could pull an Iraq on. Our army is tiny and our military hardware scant. Add to that that the only two countries in the world that we have direct access to are Russia and America and our options are limited. I suppose we could invade the French islands of St. Pierre & Miquelon just south of our province of Newfoundland. They have only a little over 6,000 inhabitants, so we'd have to pretty much slaughter them all to run up much of a tally. Thank God we don't bear the burden of empire.
Norene: I tried to make the article a primer on who was who, giving a fair bit of background into the people and the parties in the assumption that you would not know who was who. Sorry if it was not sufficient for you.
Col: Laid back and easy going is a fair description of Canadians. I have often wondered what it would take to inspire Canadians to rise up against authority. When America had a secessionist movement they started a Civil War over it and it was the third largest war in history. Canadian secessionists right now hold seats in both the Quebec 'National Assembly' (provincial legislature) and the federal parliament and have for 40 years and 15 years respectively. I prefer our approach. To get a Canadian to drop his polite and deferential demeanour you have to put skates on his feet and a hockey stick in his hands.
Carol: I agree with you entirely that power is often the lure instead of money. I have to say, though, that in this case it seemed to be merely money at work, and not all that much of it, really. I am reminded of a punchline from an old "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip where Hobbes says something to the effect of: "It's not just that everyone seems to have a price, but how shockinly low it often is."
Linda: Too true. I often wish I could go back in time and talk to my grandfather about Australia before he left Ireland.
I feel that the U. S. often treats Canadians shabbily. Do you agree?
Your article is as usual very comprehensive, even-handed and informative. I guess a part of me would like to think that Canadians are 'above' our American kind of corruption, but your article points out that even Canadians are not immune.
The Canadian news I've heard a bit more about has been some of what goes on around Six Nations territory.
It is amazing how little we know about our neighbor to the north. Well, lets put it this way: how little we know of anything going on in the world. Our media does a lousy job of informing the American public of world events, preferring to focus on national news (if it could be called news). I have traveled to South America and Europe and enjoy an exposure to world news that we don't get here.
Well there are sex scandals in politics in Canada also. It has been said that power is the greatest aphrodisiac, and there are, in every culture, examples to give weight to that idea. Recently there was a sexual liaison between two members of Parliament, and after it broke up there were several demeaning references to it on the floor of the Parliament.
Leo: The recession is starting to hit Canada, unemployment is rising. We share your auto industry woes, though our banking is on solid ground (well regulated). The Canadian economy depends heavily on the US economy as we do about 60% of our foreign trade with the USA (used to be more like 80%, but we've diversified a bit in recent decades). I don't find the USA treats Canada shabbily, more like you tend to take us for granted. There are moments when Canadian aid to America is recognized south of the border and gratitude is expressed, but they tend to be short moments and quickly forgotten. There are some elements of your society (Faux news comes to mind) that are just offensive.
Elizabeth: Keeping abreast of Canadian news from the USA is a challenge. I have two brothers long resident in the USA (Florida and Minnesota) and both are generally out of touch with Canadian events. The internet makes this easier, however. Here are a few Canadian news sites that people can use to learn about Canadian events and keep up on them:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The Globe and Mail is a national newspaper centred in our largest city, Toronto, with a centre-right perspective.
http://www.thestar.com
The Toronto Star is Canada's largest circulation newspaper and has a centre-left political perspective.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/
This is the main news webpage for the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), Canada's national public broadcaster.
http://www.rabble.ca/
This is a web-only, left wing Canadian news source.
Carolion: Sex scandals do happen in Canada, but they are rare. It's not that our politicians don't engage in questionable sexual antics, but rather that our citizenry tends to see these things more as private matters and are too polite to take much interest in them. The Clinton-Lewinsky thing could likely not have been the story in Canada that it was in the States. Years ago a federal cabinet minister had to resign from his post as Attorney General because he forged a signature on hospital papers to help his lover get an abortion (signed her husband's name). He had to resign because to have the Attorney General commit forgery was just not okay. But no one had much to say about the affair or the abortion.
Beryl: I am amazed by how inward looking American news media is. I think this is why international events often take Americans by surprise, no one is really paying attention to much that goes on outside your borders. Again, I think this has to do with the burdern of empire. You tend to see yourselves as the centre of all things and your focus naturally goes there. We tend to see ourselves as one amongst many and try to keep up with what is happening elsewhere, to some degree.
Cheri: And we can be petty, too. This one, despite the possibly large ramifications of it, is kind of petty in its details and really hasn't grabbed the attention of the nation the way it might yet do. If the economy weren't in the toilet and consuming everyone's interest there might be more concern being expressed by the public about this.
George: Even the incident your refer to (Peter McKay - Belinda Stronach) would not have been much of an issue if Ms. Stronach had not crossed party lines, left the Conservatives and joined the Liberals, precipitating the end of the relationship. The sexual liaison aspect of things was drawn into the political intrigue. I just have a hard time seeing Canadians get all fired up about who is sleeping with whom. Rene Levesque had an affair with one of his staff for years and years and no one said anything about it. They finally got married at one point and the length of their association was referred to in the articles about their wedding, but that was it. We tend not to be too puritanical about it.
Such a dialogue, in book form perhaps, might help Americans "see ourselves as ithers see us."
I saw snow flurries in Winnepeg in June. One April after I had mowed my yard several times here in Texas I traveled to Geraldton, Ontatio where the temperature hovered around 0 degrees F and their was still a huge amount of snow on the ground. One day in late August it started snowing as my flight was loading to depart from Calgary.
Great country, nice people, lousy weather.
No sex, you say? What about the honorable member for Whitehorse and the Yukon doinkin' his secretary in hid Ottawa residence (paid for by the Canadian taxpayer) Granted, we hear more of the U.S. than they do of Canada, but that's because our media people have more respect than theirs, and our people don't make huge noises over minor matters. Nice to see you writing again, Rory! Between us, we could have a bsall with Canadian life and lifestyles!
Besides for the fact that the American media is such a huge machine, and so very introspective, Americans are for the most part both more lewd and lascivious and more uptight and prudish than Canadians. It's a contradiction, I know, but there you have it.
I should write about Sam Steele of the Northwest Mounted Police and how he single handedly tamed the Canadian wild west!
"Americans are for the most part both more lewd and lascivious and more uptight and prudish than Canadians."
True.
See you didn't get stuck with a bunch of puritans for ancestors, some of us do envy you that.
Then came the massive Irish migrations of the 19th century.
Not a puritan in the lot.
And I admit that whenever I visit my Canadian Aunties and cousins, they know more about us than I know about them, politically.
Very good article and all this time I thought Mulroney was sooo boring.
Margaret was also known to have smoked dope in the presidential palace in Mexico while she was still Canada's "first lady" (not an official office here), while on a state visit with Pierre.
It was her behavior that caused her to be termed "child" and the difference in age.
Naturally since her later life included no scandals, we haven't seen any reports.
It is good that she is lending her name to mental illness.