Friday, July 27, 2007

What stinks, and keeps floating to the surface no matter how many times you flush?

If you guessed either Airbus or Brian Mulroney, you'd be right!



In the continuing saga of the Airbus scandal, whereby Brian Mulroney pocketed* a handsome sum of money ($300,000) from German businessman Karlheinz Schreiber to grease the wheels that would allow Karl to build a factory in in Quebec, "with a head office in Ottawa, and a pasta business in Ontario" (Karl presumably took to heart the business adage "Diversify!).

Brian Mulroney has been ordered by a court to pay $470,000 to former business associate Karlheinz Schreiber ($300,000 for the bribe, oh sorry "gift", plus expenses and interest).

The fact is that Bri keeps walking away from every scandal he finds himself in, smelling of cheap air freshener and with a couple of million from threatening to sue the crap out of various bodies, such as the former Liberal government (for libel)....

"The federal Liberal government apologized to Mulroney in early 1997 for wording in a Justice Department letter to Swiss authorities two years earlier that left the impression he and others had received illegal payments in connection with the 1988 purchase of 34 Airbus Industrie jetliners by then Crown-owned Air Canada.

Federal authorities had also paid the former prime minister's $2-million legal bill.

The apology came just hours before Mulroney's $50-million libel suit against the government and the Mounties was to go to trial in Montreal.

The RCMP insisted at the time that despite the settlement its probe of the Airbus transaction was still actively being pursued. However, in an April 2003 statement, the police force said it had wrapped up its Airbus investigation."

*Mulroney has acknowledged receiving the money, which came after he retired from politics, and has said he was paid for his assistance in setting up a pasta-machine company. Schreiber’s lawsuit, filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, alleges Mulroney did not perform the work for which he was paid.

So, I wonder how long it will be before Bri threatens to sue the Ontario government, walks away with another couple of million for the damage to his "reputation", and then resurfaces tooting his horn about how he was "Canada's Greatest Prime Minister"™.

Yep! Shit floats....

No comments: