Francois Martin: interview notes, July 1993

Interview with Francois Martin, Montreal, Friday morning, July 16, 1993

Note: I interviewed Francois Martin several times over the years and at the bottom of these notes I have attached one of the stories I wrote about him for The Globe and Mail in 1990.

NB: These notes are a summary of the interview done for my book, On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years, which was published in October 1994. Because it was such a key interview for the book, my research associate Rod Macdonell, a senior investigative reporter at the Montreal Gazette, accompanied me. Francois was nervous about being taped so we decided two of us should be there. Rod would be the main note-taker while I talked to Francois, but I took notes as well. We checked the information he gave us with many sources, including the people he mentioned - Joe Plaskett, Bonnie Brownlee and the rest. Not all of them returned our calls or responded but most did. Most of the following information appeared in On the Take and it has never been challenged.

My research material and interviews are all stored in the archives at York University; I donated them to the Nathanson Centre for the Study of Organized Crime and Corruption at Osgoode Hall Law School. But I was able to find a great deal of this information still stored in my computers. Here is the summary of the first set of notes we made after talking to Francois that morning in a three-hour interview. The explanatory note (next paragraph, below) was written at the time these notes were taken.

Rod took the notes and is typing them up in full. The following is just a list of topics raised and Martin's comments in point form, based on Rod's interview notes. I have pulled together comments made throughout this three-hour interview into the appropriate topics. Rod's notes will be more extensive.
Martin was the Mulroneys' chef for four years, from early in 1985 until he quit late in 1989. He had been working as a chef at the National Arts Centre where head chef Kurt Waldele arranged for him to be interviewed for the job at Sussex Drive. He competed and won. I interviewed him several years ago and have been in touch with him ever since. A few years ago he wrote a book about his time at Sussex Drive and was unable to find a publisher; Jacques Lanctot in Montreal (the former FLQ terrorist) told me he felt he could make the manuscript into something publishable but was unwilling to take it one because he feared losing his federal publishing grant.
Martin has had a number of well-received gallery showings of painting he did during and after his years at 24 Sussex. Many of the works were devastating portraits of life inside 24 Sussex Drive; La Diva Mila is the best known. Others were witty snapshots of political events in the houses - meetings, receptions and so on. His paintings have been praised by such people as Charles Hill, curator of the Canadian collection at the National Gallery and the head of the Art Bank. The galleries include Ufundi in Ottawa, ?? in Toronto and ?? in Montreal. The last Montreal exhibition closed a few weeks ago.

Today [1993] he is living in Montreal, looking for work as a chef and continuing to paint.


24 Sussex - Mila said to Francois that there wasn't a lot of stuff there when she got there and there wouldn't be a lot when she left. She said the same about Harrington Lake.
Why did she do an inventory? Because of the [April 1987] story about Giovanni [Mowinckel, the interior designer who worked on the official residences, work that was partly paid for by the PC Canada Fund]. She heard the story was coming and she was screaming around the house and saying she was going to kill him. She was up till 3 a.m. the night before the story ran. She couldn't sleep.
Mila's insomnia - She got a prescription from her father [a Westmount psychiatrist] for sleeping pills.

The Lemieux painting - [a painting by Quebec painter, Jean-Paul Lemieux who died in 1990] Francois loved it and told her [Mila Mulroney that] he wanted to buy it; she said he couldn't because he didn't have the money. She said she owned it, that Brian had bought it for her a long time ago for $17,000.

Why is she saying this? "Because Mila wants everything." Bonnie [Brownlee, Mila Mulroney's assistant] told him it was Jean-Paul Lemieux's and the painter wanted it back. Bonnie called Lemieux to try to placate him. Francois painted a copy of the painting in his own picture, La Nouvelle Cuisine Quebecoise-Constitution, a scene of Mulroney, Lucien Bouchard, Robert Bourassa and Jacques Parizeau sitting around the dining room table at 24 Sussex. Behind them, on the wall, is the Lemieux painting, Le Refectoire.

Shopping - Mrs. Sauve [former Governor-General Jeanne Sauve] went shopping with her [Mila Mulroney] to Serge et Real's - the store where both women bought a lot of clothes in Montreal.

Cash for shopping - I'd go to [Fred] Doucet's office in the PMO about once a week and pick up an envelope with cash, about $10,000 or $11,000 each time. We'd get money before a shopping trip to New York as well - it usually cost about $15,000 for three days and she'd stay at the Pierre. There was no reference to the money, we'd just chitchat. It was in a brown envelope, letter-size, unsealed. It was in $1,000 bills, and it may have been in hundreds as well. Sometimes late at night she'd [Mila Mulroney] call me and give me $8,000 to $10,000 in cash and ask me to put it in the bank. I was nervous because I had to take it home overnight. I put it in the big bank on Sparks Street, the one with the big pillars on the north side [the Bank of Montreal]. Cash came in like it was falling from the sky.

Derek McSweeney, the chauffeur and Mike McSweeney's brother, would go to get the money sometimes. He [Derek McSweeney]often had disagreements and quit three or four times during the time Francois was there. He [Francois] stopped picking up the cash when Doucet left.

The Plaskett portrait. [A portrait of Mila Mulroney painted by Canadian artist Joe Plaskett in Paris and mentioned to SC by Mordecai Richler; Plaskett had a great deal of trouble getting paid for it and finally Helen Vari paid him.]

She got it. [the Plaskett portrait] She brought it home and unrolled it and asked me what kind of frame should it go in. Mrs. [Helen] Vari is the one who introduced her to Plaskett. the Varis have a house in Nice and Francois spent a short holiday there once.

Helen Vari used to come with big suitcases full of dresses and suits for Mila; I'd take them up to her bedroom. She'd bring 20 dresses at a time. How many in all? Maybe 200.

Jewellery. One time she received a big brooch as a gift from a head of state. Can't remember the name, I think its starts with H. Maybe Hussein? She had Lou Goldberg [the jeweller she uses in Montreal] melt it down for her because it was too big to wear; he made her a ring and earrings and something else. This same head of state also gave her a baby grand piano.
Gifts for heads of state. Mila often bought gifts for visiting heads of state [under the rules, she is allowed to spend up to $1,000 each for a gift for a foreign dignitary]. Often she would buy three or four items, give the visitor one and keep or give away the others. [This story can be supported by xxxxxxxx, who sold gifts for foreign dignitaries to Mila.]

Senneville property? I think she bought property in Senneville. She told me she did.

Booze. Francois would order and pay for cartons of wine and liquor; she would send these to her relatives.

Ross Johnston: [former CEO of Nabisco; led unsuccesful leveraged buyout effort for the company in 1987, a saga that was the subject of the bestseller, Barbarians at the Gate]
Packages from Nabisco arrived all the time - big boxes of food and stuff.

Shopping: There was a discussion about Robby McRobb [ran errands for the Mulroneys] who had a friend inside customs. A company would be billed for all the costs of a package - customs, shipping etc ... What was she bringing in? Wine, clothes, shoes. Things like that. Robby would fix the bills. Robby wanted a green card and the Mulroneys were supposed to help him get one; they played with that. They had to find a way to escape my story on how they got through customs without much checking so they came up with a method of shipping goods.

China: She [MIla Mulroney] bought the blue and white china (she tried to sell to the government in 1993) through the National Arts centre; it was paid for by the PMO as a bill for waiters or food. It's a Fitz and Floyd pattern, not fancy [Starburst, according to NCC]. CHECK CHINA PATTERN with Allan Stark at Ashley's; he knows all patterns, xxxxxxx says. They bought enough to give Bernard and Madeleine Roy a service for 12; they gave them half at Christmas and the other half on a birthday. They kept the Roy china hidden in the chef's office in the basement.

Bobby Orr: He came to Harrington [Harrington Lake, PM's summer residence] one time as a guest; he came in his own camper van, a big one like a Winnebago. They put him in the guest cottage which was full of mice; he left the next day.

Ivana Pivnicki: [Mila Mulroney's sister] I think Ivana was jealous of Mila. Mila met Brian at Expo 67 where she was a hostess [I can't believe this - she would have been too young; Sawatsky says it was the tennis club in 1972 when she was 19; better check this...] Mila got Ivana a job at Expo 87 in Vancouver so she could find a husband. Mila frequently sent Robby McRobb to Ivana's apartment in Toronto to help her paint it or do odd jobs. Mila was trying to get a job for her sister every two months. Ivana was always changing jobs.

Mulroney: Drank Nyquil every night. A lot. A bottle every night? The butler was always saying, 'we're out of Nyquil again.'

Coats: Brian and Mila had a major argument once abaout her wearing a fur coat. She wanted to wear a fur coat but Barbara Bush was wearing a cloth coat. Mulroney wanted her to wear a cloth coat and they had a fight about it. Did they fight a lot? Yes. He is quiet - she's a screamer.

Bonnie Brownlee: Had two fur coats. She was a little Mila. Her place was like a museum and cluttered with antiques. One time Mila had a wedding shower for Bonnie - she said she should invite wealthy people to get good presents. So they invited Mrs. Desmarais and Mrs. Vari. They came. Francois also catered Bonnie's wedding to Bill Fox at 24 Sussex - Bonnie wasn't happy about this - she would have liked to control her own wedding. [Bonnie Brownlee confirmed this to me in an interview in 1994.] They also wanted to set Bonnie up with a career as a TV reporter like Pamela Wallin.

Palm Beach: Every vacation or parliamentary break they went to Palm Beach and they almost always stayed at Moses Deitcher's house there. One time the house was unavailable and Robby McRobb went down a week ahead to get another place ready. One time they invited Francois to come as a holiday but when he got there he found he was supposed to cook. Francois stayed at a motel nearby where Bill Pristanski knew the owner. Mulroneys received many people there and they always took a butler and nanny who flew in a separate plane so they wouldn't be on the flight manifest.

Safe: 24 Sussex has a safe behind a picture in the front hall, on the way to the den. They installed a big safe, like a refrigerator, in Francois' basement office. Rick Morgan would come and put money in the safe; he brought it in an attache case and took it out - usually a brown letter size envelope about an inch thick. Rick would remove it as well. He knew the combination of the safe. He also saw Mulroney take some. This basement office was where "we hid the dishes" [the Roy china]; they also kept leather photo albums, put together on a monthly basis.

Plastic surgery: While he was there Mila had a lot of cosmetic surgery done. Her legs - although he doesn't know if this was vein or liposuction works. He says she had her breasts enlarged. She said to me "Brian likes that - I showed him last night."

Vistors: Who came most often to Sussex Drive? What about media? Bernard Derome [Quebec broadcaster] came often. Derome once came into Francois' shop in St. Adele [Martin had a catering busines and food shop in Ste Adele, in the Laurentians, for a short while] and when he saw him in there and the painting on the wall, Derome stared, turned and walked out. Jeff Simpson [colunist for the Gloeb and Mail] was there a lot. Non-media guests included [Michel] Cogger (frequently), [Jean] Bazin, [Guy] Charbonneau (often for business lunches and social dinners), Don Matthews, Charles Bronfman, Hartland ? Price, ? Henderson, Joe Stewart (not frequent but often enough), Winser, Lortie.

Staff: There were a lot of Filippinos - they wanted their citizenships. And Cathy Auchleck - she came as a nanny for Nicholas and wound up going through law school while living with them. They paid. She is now their lawyer. The staff was resentful that she went from being a staff member to a guest.

GLOBE AND MAIL - DOCUMENT 1 - Page 1 of 3
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
920440230 THU FEB.13,1992 PAGE: C3
CLASS: The Arts
DATELINE: WORDS: 635
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

** NOISES OFF **
** The Cook, The Chief, His Wife and Her Painter **
F RANCOIS Martin,*chef*for Brian and Mila Mulroney from 1985 to 1989,
made quite a stir in Ottawa in 1990 when he displayed paintings of his
former employer lounging in her bed or issuing orders from the top of the
staircase at 24 Sussex Drive.
Now Martin, who enthusiasts describe as a natural talent, has found a
Toronto dealer - David Johnson of the Young Fox Gallery - and is showing
off more of his peinture a clef on Queen Street East.
Among the small selection is Royal Icing, a happy wedding scene with a
self-portrait of the*chef*in the background. The painting refers to the
marriage of lobbyist Fred Doucet, a Mulroney crony. The wedding was held
at 24 Sussex, and Martin, whose salary was paid by the federal government,
says he baked the cake and did the catering. Fleur de Peau shows Mila and
Brian unwrapping a landscape, a painting of Harrington Lake that Martin
gave them as a gift. Xmas Wrapping Looking for a Gift shows a massive
gift-wrapping session on the dining room table at 24 Sussex. Martin says
the Mulroneys would rewrap gifts they had received and didn't like, so
they could pass them on to others.
Martin now runs a catering business in the Laurentians and paints part-
time. He says he has more tales to tell of life at 24 Sussex, but still
can't find a publisher for his autobiography.

GLOBE AND MAIL - DOCUMENT 2 - Page 1 of 2
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
901520116 FRI JUN.01,1990 PAGE: A6
CLASS: Editorial
DATELINE: WORDS: 314
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

** What's cooking at 24 Sussex? **
So what's on the menu at 24 Sussex Drive this weekend? Roast Prime
Minister a la Meech? Premier Salad with One-Island dressing? Warmed-over
compromise (best before June 23)? The cut of a thousand beefs? Buttered
first ministers? Carrots on a stick? Boneless chicken or unrepentant
turkey?
Yesterday it was*Chef's*Surprise, a 300-page offering whipped up by
*Francois*Martin,*who was*chef*at the Prime Minister's residence from
January, 1985, to May, 1989. Now that it has simmered for a year, it has
been served up to a dozen Quebec publishers, none of whom show any sign of
salivation. Gastro-politics does not seem to tickle their palates, so Mr.
Martin has taken his memoirs on the road, hoping Ontario will show more
interest.
Throughout history, the servants' quarters and the kitchen have proved
to be a notoriously leaky part of the domestic scene for celebrities.
Buckingham Palace, a short coach ride from the very heart of chequebook
journalism, has from time to time reacted with stiff dismay to revelations
that sprang from the packed and palpitating diaries of departing staff.
In Ottawa, the Prime Minister's Office is no more amused than Queen
Victoria might have been. Denials have been issued - dealing, among other
things, with Mr. Martin's account of food boxes, prepared and dispatched
at Mrs. Mulroney's behest to her relatives. The*chef*is sticking to his
guns but, in any case, there does not seem to be anything dreadfully
scandalous here. One might be surprised to learn that the*chef*at 24
Sussex Drive would sometimes work from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. without overtime.
Our thoughtless prime minister, we learn, would also occasionally bring
several people home for lunch without letting him know they were coming.
Or how they spelled their names.
The wonder is that Mr. Martin was not overwhelmed by fatigue. Or
writer's cramp.


GLOBE AND MAIL - DOCUMENT 3 - Page 1 of 8
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
901510041 THU MAY.31,1990 PAGE: A1 (ILLUS)
BYLINE: STEVIE CAMERON
CLASS: News
DATELINE: Montreal PQ WORDS: 1620
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

***Chef*gives glimpse of life **
** inside 24 Sussex Drive **
BY STEVIE CAMERON
The Globe and Mail
MONTREAL
Most of the time, when a staff member leaves a Canadian politician's
household the leave-taking is discreet in the extreme and there is no
kiss-and-tell afterward.
One of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney 's employees chose a different
way to leave, a sort of cook-and-tell.
The Prime Minister's Office is not amused.
*Francois*Martin,*who was*chef*at 24 Sussex Dr. from January, 1985,
until May, 1989, spent last fall writing a 300-page history of the
upstairs-downstairs life in the Prime Minister's residence, a history he
reconstructed from his own records, menus and guest lists.
The manuscript offers a look at life at 24 Sussex, one in which the
staff call the Mulroneys simply "Mr." and "Mrs." and in which Brian
Mulroney is almost a minor figure.
"He's quiet," explained Mr. Martin in an interview. "And he is always
going on diets. But when he gets upset about something on the news at
night, he'll come into the kitchen for something like cookies and Mrs.
tries to talk him out of it."
Mr. Martin has taken the manuscript to a dozen publishers in Quebec; so
far all of them have turned him down. Ontario publishers are now looking
at it.
The manuscript is not about the political crises of the government, but
of day-to-day domestic life, enlivened by the parade of important visitors
for whom the*chef*created extravagant dishes.
But his tale of life at 24 Sussex has caused prime ministerial staff to
denounce him as untruthful.
According to Mr. Martin, for example, Mila Mulroney asked him to
prepare and send monthly care packages of food, cases of wines, regular
deliveries of fresh flowers, and even cleaning supplies to her relatives.
The PMO has emphatically denied his recollections, saying that Mr.
Mulroney is the first Canadian prime minister to pay for his own food.
Although Mr. Martin did all the grocery shopping, charging most of the
food on accounts at both wholesalers and small specialty shops, he said he
did not know who paid the bills because they all went to the PMO, usually
to Mrs. Mulroney's assistant, Bonnie Brownlee.
Mr. Martin said Mrs. Mulroney asked him every month to pack boxes of
food - including hot meals such as veal scaloppine packed in thermal
containers - as well as staple goods and cleaning supplies for her
parents, Dmitri and Bogdana Pivnicki in Montreal, and less frequently for
her sister Ivana Pivnicki in Toronto. Raiding his bulk supplies, he said
he would tuck such items as bottles of Windex and cans of Ajax in among
the groceries.
He said he often delivered the boxes himself. He was also asked to send
cases of wine and spirits to the Pivnickis and would arrange for bouquets
of fresh flowers from the Rideau Hall greenhouses to go to Montreal.
Gilbert Lavoie, the Prime Minister's press secretary, says Mr. Martin's
stories are untrue.
"The stories of the shipment of food, wine and flowers are false," Mr.
Lavoie said. "When her mother visits her, all Mrs. Mulroney does is give
her the usual care packages anyone would give." Mr. Lavoie added that the
Mulroneys paid for their own groceries.
In 1984, Mr. Mulroney said he would pay for his family's groceries at
24 Sussex, and his office later announced that he had sent a $4,000 cheque
to Revenue Canada in 1985 to cover food costs for six months.
"When you pay your own bills," Mr. Lavoie said, "you can do what you
want with the food, the wines, the flowers."
He said he had no receipts or proof that the Mulroneys paid these
bills, and had no idea how much money they have spent on food. "I don't
have figures in front of me. It is his private life."
Mr. Lavoie also objected, he said, to "asking us to prove negatives for
matters that go back in time. I don't have a week to search for documents
that I don't think are needed."
Two years ago, Mr. Martin said, he spent two weeks cooking food for
Mrs. Mulroney's brother's wedding after the Pivnicki family decided a
$10,000 catering estimate from exclusive Montreal caterer Roger Colas was
too high.
Mr. Martin also baked and decorated a four-layer wedding cake for Jovan
Pivnicki and his bride, Manuela Suares.
Mr. Martin, 28, a native of Maniwaki, Que., is a graduate of Quebec's
highly regarded hotel school, L'Institut de tourisme et d'hotellerie de
Quebec, in Montreal. After working at two Ottawa restaurants, he moved to
the National Arts Centre for a year. He competed against 11 other chefs
for the job at 24 Sussex, and at first after he joined the staff on Jan.
28, 1985, at a salary of $28,000 a year, he loved it.
"It was exciting," he recalled. "Everything was fun and within two
weeks I saw that I was making a difference. And my parents were so proud
of me."
There were the state dinners for President George Bush in Ottawa, the
Queen in Quebec City and the Prince and Princess of Wales in Vancouver,
when he was able to create splendid dinners that won him raves. There was
the luncheon to honor Canadian fashion designers, for which he created
little soup crackers shaped like scissors and named each dish, such as
crepes de chine, for a fabric or a design.
By the time Mr. Martin left, his salary had gone up to $41,000.
(According to a federal cabinet order-in-council, passed May 17, the new
*chef,*John LeBlanc, earns between $51,000 and $53,000.)
Life at 24 Sussex was so glamorous that at first Mr. Martin accepted
the long hours and the fact that, as he said, "I had no life of my own."
He said he worked from 7 a.m., when he arrived to prepare the children's
breakfast, until 12 or 1 a.m. six to seven days a week without overtime
pay.
But he did start to complain about thoughtlessness. The Prime Minister,
he said, often would bring several people home for lunch without notice.
"The first I'd hear was when the RCMP would phone me as they came in
the gates. When I said something, Mrs. said, 'Francois, you have to be
creative.'
One of Mr. Martin's frequent chores, he said, was to drive to Montreal
to pick up clothes and jewelry from various stores for Mrs. Mulroney. He
never paid for anything, he said; bills were managed by Ms Brownlee.
Using charge accounts, Mr. Martin did all the grocery shopping for the
prime ministerial home, buying from wholesale suppliers as well as from
specialists in Ottawa's Byward Market. A constant irritant, however, was
the increasing demand made on his $250 petty cash float.
"Mrs. Mulroney used to ask me to pay for things like lamps or things
for the house out of the kitchen petty cash," he said, "so I had to have
the float increased to $1,500."
One of the reasons Mr. Martin took the job was the promise of travel,
but there were few trips. Although the Mulroneys usually stay in a Florida
villa, with the use of a Bentley belonging to their Montreal friend Moses
Deitcher, Mr. Martin said he only went twice.
One of the busiest years at 24 Sussex, said Mr. Martin, was 1987, when
the Mulroneys entertained PC party faithful to prepare for the 1988
election. "For VIP summer parties, everything was the best: little
brochettes of lamb, little homemade lobster spring rolls. When they had
the press party, the food was simpler - corn on the cob, stuff like that."
But of all the special jobs he did for the Mulroneys, Mr. Martin best
remembers Jovan Pivnicki's wedding in September, 1988.
He delivered one van load of soft drinks, soda, serving dishes, pots
and pans and other supplies to Mrs. Pivnicki's garage in Montreal a week
before the wedding and another load to the hall the day before. He said he
spent two weeks preparing food for a cocktail reception for 180 guests,
creating canapes such as Chinese dumplings and baby spring rolls.
Mr. Martin said he worked through the night before the ceremony with
the florist and staff from 24 Sussex, setting up the tables, preparing the
food, washing the floor, swathing the wedding cake in tulle.
"I finished at 2 a.m., drove back to Ottawa, loaded the van up with all
the food, silver trays, chafing dishes, a deep fryer. Then I drove it back
the next morning."
According to Mr. Martin, the National Arts Centre sent orange juice and
Perrier as well as waiters, a*chef*and their banquet manager to help. "The
NAC sent Mrs. a bill for $1,300," Mr. Martin said. "And Mrs. brought all
the wines."
As far as the Pivnicki wedding was concerned, Mr. Lavoie said, the
families paid for all of it, including the food. "The*chef*works out of
the house for the family. It doesn't matter if he works one day on a
wedding."
Mr. Martin said it was not long after the wedding that he decided it
was time to leave. One reason was that two months earlier a new household
co-ordinator had been hired at a high salary, he said, to supervise the
staff, a job Mr. Martin had been doing in addition to his*chef's*job. Mr.
Martin said Ms Brownlee advised him a lawyer might be able to help him get
a fair severance, so he hired one and left with an $11,000 settlement.
"Mrs. was very upset. You don't leave THEM. She even offered to get me
financial backing for a new restaurant of my own. But I had had it."


GLOBE AND MAIL - DOCUMENT 4 - Page 1 of 2
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
850790253 WED MAR.20,1985 PAGE: P4
CLASS: News
DATELINE: WORDS: 210
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

** Mulroneys' non-nanny **
** quits controversial job **
From the Ottawa Bureau
of The Globe and Mail
The nanny at 24 Sussex Drive has left her position, although Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney's aides say there was never a nanny there.
Elizabeth MacDonald was first described by the Prime Minister's Office
as a nanny.
A clarification was issued quickly, however, because of the tricky
matter of the Prime Minister's election promise that taxpayers would never
pay for his family's nanny, as they did for former prime minister Pierre
Trudeau's nanny.
Mr. Mulroney's aide Fred Doucet called Miss MacDonald one of several
staff members who ''interface with the children.''
Mila Mulroney preferred last fall to describe Miss MacDonald's $17,000-
a-year job as that of maid and ''mother's helper.'' Mrs. Mulroney, who is
expecting her fourth child, insisted she would never hire a nanny because
she prefers to raise her children herself.
Press aide William Fox stressed again yesterday that Miss MacDonald
''was never a nanny'' and said she is leaving to return to school.
Two other positions at the Prime Minister's residence have been filled,
according to the most recently published weekly list of orders-in-council.
Albert McRobb, a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces, has been
hired as household co-ordinator.*Francois*Martin*will be*chef.*

Francois Martin

Francois Martin is a wonderful person and was courageous in speaking out about the excesses he witnessed firsthand at 24 Sussex Drive when he worked there. After quitting his job because of these, he put together a manuscript about his experiences but couldn't find a publisher brave enough to take it; one he approached, he told me later, was former FLQ terrorist Jacques Lanctot who became a successful book publisher after serving three years in a Quebec prison (and some years in exile in Paris and Cuba) for taking part in the 1970 kidnap of James Cross, the British consul in Montreal.

I interviewed Lanctot in 1990 for a CBC Fifth Estate documentary on the anniversary of the October Crisis and the Cross kidnapping and could not resist asking him why he had rejected Francois Martin's manuscript.

Wasn't it any good? I asked.

It was very good, he replied. But he couldn't take it , he said; "if I had I would have lost my Canada Council grant."

After speaking out about the Mulroneys and giving me on-the-record interviews for my book, Mr. Martin had a difficult time finding work. Later, thank God, he was very successful. He deserved his success and I liked him very much.

But today he told the Ethics Committee today that I exaggerated in retelling his stories of the money that came into 24 Sussex Drive, money he often picked up in cash forMila Mulroney. My interviews are all in the archives at York University; I donated them to the Nathanson Centre for the Study of Organized Crime and Corruption at Osgoode Hall Law School. I will arrange to get them pulled and will check the originals.

But I didn't exaggerate. Both Mrs. Mulroney's assistant, Bonnie Brownlee and, later, Senator Marjory Lebreton confirmed that cash went to Sussex Drive for the Mulroneys. (Senator Lebreton told me this during a heated conversation on a now-defunct CBC Newsworld television talk show hosted by Clare Hoy and Judy Rebick.) So did Senator David Angus, the head of the PC Canada Fund which was a source for much of the cash. (See the previous posting.)

Every fact like this was checked and double-checked and I interviewed Francois Martin several times, often with my colleague, Rod Macdonell. Along with the cash, Mr. Martin also told us about gifts of couture clothing, art and other items from Mulroney friends, especially George and Helen Vari.

Mr. Mulroney's money

As several people prepare to tell the Commons Ethics Committee what they know about Brian Mulroney and money he received from various sources, I thought it might be useful to offer a brief review of some of what I have learned about all this myself.

• Before Brian Mulroney was elected Prime Minister of Canada, a powerful cross-Canada network of fundraisers, led by Montreal Conservative senator Guy Charbonneau, offered a variety of ways to donate to his leadership campaign. One of the most interesting options, offered only to trusted insiders, was an account was set up for Mulroney in a downtown Montreal branch of Montreal Trust. Donors who were interested in privacy and who didn't require tax receipts could make out a cheque to Montreal Trust - Account # 830, and Mulroney could withdraw money from this account himself.

• Shortly before Mulroney's 1984 victory, one fundraiser I know was offered a senatorship by Guy Charbonneau (who died a few years ago) in exchange for a contribution of $100,000 to Account 830 at Montreal Trust. The fundraiser said no, thanks.

• While Mulroney was prime minister, his blind trust and other financial affairs were managed by Bruce Verchere, a Montreal tax lawyer who later shot himself. The whole story - or rather, the part I was able to tell - is in Blue Trust, a book published by Macfarlane Walter & Ross in 1998.

• When I was researching a story about the Mulroneys' decorating expenses at 24 Sussex Drive, a story that appeared in the Globe and Mail in 1987, I discovered the PC Party was underwriting many of the costs - at least $324,000 worth. Buried in the receipts was one cheque on CIBC account number 72-1112 at their main Montreal branch on Rue Rene Levesque. This cheque, made out to the Mulroney's interior designer, Giovanni Mowinckel and bearing the signature of PC Canada Fund Chairman David Angus, had no logo or identification on it; a call to the bank confirmed that it was a PC Canada Fund account. But Robert Foster, the man who succeeded Mr. Angus in 1994 as head of the Fund, told me that the Fund only had one bank account and it was held in the CIBC in Ottawa.

• Mulroney and his spokespeople always denied that he received any financial support from the PC Party while he was in office. When I interviewed Mr. Angus in his law office in Montreal on June 27, 1994 I asked him about reliable information I had obtained that Mr. Mulroney was receiving about $300,000 a year from the party. Another source, the Mulroneys' former chef, Francois Martin, had also told me that for several years he would go to the Prime Minister's Office to pick up envelopes of cash from Fred Doucet or other persons; the envelopes were always unsealed and contained thousands of dollars - he remembered amounts of anywhere from $8,000 to $12,000 or so. The money, he told me, was "walking-around money" for Mila Mulroney. Martin also did banking for Mrs. Mulroney, taking envelopes of cash to deposit in her account at the Bank of Montreal on Wellington Street in Ottawa. (Many years later I met a former bank manager who handled the Mulroney accounts. He wouldn't talk about them but he did admit the work was often, as he put it wryly, "quite ... exciting.")
  

To my surprise, I enjoyed most of my interview with Mr. Angus despite the fact that he got angry a couple of times and had a lawyer there to record the entire interview. (It was Kathryn Chalmers, a partner in Stikeman Elliott's Toronto office.) Most of the time Mr. Angus, appointed to the Senate in 1993 by Mr. Mulroney, was courteous. I was accompanied by my research associate and fellow journalist Rod Macdonell, an investigative reporter at the Montreal Gazette. Each side taped the interview which lasted about two hours. Rod and I compared our tapes and transcripts and corrected them; we sent a copy of the final transcript to Mr. Angus for comments or corrections but received no response.

Here are a few of the questions and answers that relate to money provided by the party to Mr. Mulroney taken from a much longer interview; SC is Stevie Cameron and DA is David Angus and [square brackets] indicate necessary explanations of terms or identification of individuals.

SC: … Then we have also been told that the party supplemented Mulroney’s income by $300,000 a year, money that appears to have been on top of the money given for specific expenditures. And what you and I have talked about in the past are these specific expenditures, you know, when you said that when he and his wife are doing something political for the party, of course we support that. We’ve talked about that. And you’ve talked about that with Richard Cleroux [former Globe and Mail national reporter] as well, who’s been giving me some help with this. So on top of that, can you confirm this other statement I have?

DA: Make the statement and I’ll see.

SC: That the party supplemented his income by about $300,000 a year.

DA: No, absolutely false, totally false. He never had any moneys from the party other than to reimburse incident expenses that he occurred. That were incurred by him in his functions as leader of the PC party.

SC: OK, let me get that: I never had any money from the party except to reimburse him for expenses he incurred…

DA: for expenses

SC: for expenses he incurred

DA: As in fulfilling his functions as leader of the party.

SC: I could ask you this right now, but later on we’ve got Gerry St. Germain [former PC Party president] babbling on about the money. Do you remember that incident where Gerry St. Germain talked about the money? I’ll get to that in a second.

DA: OK. I don’t recall it, but you may…

SC: Well, he’s talking about income. [During the interview I read the following section of a newspaper story about PC Party President Gerry St. Germaine to Mr. Angus:]

On July 18, 1991, on the eve of the party’s national convention, St. Germain was questioned by reporters over a mysterious story that had surfaced in Ottawa about Mulroney’s earnings. An anonymous Revenue Canada official leaked a report to a member of the media that said Mulroney had filed a return for earnings in 1990 of about $300,000 — almost twice as much as the annual $164,200 he earned in salary and tax-free allowances from the House of Commons. The report, which was never verified as to its accuracy, said that in ‘89 Mulroney filed three T4 slips including one for pay from the party which added up to over $300,000. In interviews, St. Germain admitted the PC Party was regularly paying the Prime Minister extra money for expenses, but he refused to say how much that was. “The party does give assistance to the leader of a party, and what the Prime Minister actually declares as income is his business,” St. Germain said. “I haven’t got any information as to amounts. We do give assistance because there are certain things the Prime Minister has to do that relate to party functions.” He insisted the extra money was not a supplementary income; he told reporters the accounting arrangements were all open and above board.

SC: I’m saying here in the manuscript: "What he wouldn’t tell the media was how the payments were made. Was the money paid in lump-sum amounts? He wouldn’t say. What about receipts? Did Mulroney have to submit receipts? Again, no answer. Then, quoting Gerry St. Germain directly: 'I can only say to you if there was an allocation made and I am not part of that process, the accounting process, but the allocation is predicated on demand for political functions that do take place that involve the Prime Minister.'"

And then of course later that day he backs off entirely and says the PC Party doesn’t supplement the income of the leader.

DA: He probably checked, … I don’t know. All the first part, you’re assuming that the payment in the leaked document was true. The 300,000 never was pegged, no figures in the nature of income ever were pegged by the party to the Prime Minister, or when he was leader.

And as I said before and I’ll repeat, and I’ll put it to you in even a more extensive way: When he became leader of the party, he approached me, you know, and said that he’d had chats with former leaders, not only of our party, because things happen, from day to day, you’re traveling all over the country, and he said the party is probably going to incur, pay some bills in the normal course of events while I’m leader of this party. And some of them are going to be of a personal nature. And I would like you to keep strict track of the expenses of a personal nature and bill me on a regular basis. And I was given a letter to that effect, and instructed to behave in that fashion. And I monitored, and it was with an auditor, and every, periodically I would invoice Mr. Mulroney for any expenses that were paid by the party that we considered to be of a personal nature, and he would pay immediately.

And that lasted right through until he left last year. And I know of no other payments that were ever made to him by the party while I was chairman of the PC Canada fund, and I was the only chairman of the PC Canada fund throughout the years he was leader. [pause] As I say, none of the payments that were made in any stretch could be deemed to be income. In fact, I raised with him, when we were paying, rather than wait till October when he had time to gather all the receipts in of all the stuff where he had incurred expenses having a barbecue for the media, say, or for all the party executive or whatever at 24 Sussex. We’d pay on a regular basis, on a monthly basis a fixed amount, and I said, you know, we’d better make sure that this is , from a fiscal point of view, the right way to do it, I mean … you’d better check with your lawyers and so forth.

And then ultimately a tax ruling was obtained from Revenue Canada that we were doing it correctly, and I personally verified all of that. And as I say, there were never any large amounts. The only large amounts, by the way, that were ever paid over on his behalf and that I recovered by invoicing him later, were the Colvin Design ones, and that was all an arrangement made by Dr. Doucet. [Colvin Design was the interior design firm responsible for decorating the officials residences at 24 Sussex Drive and Harrington Lake, as well as Mr. Mulroney's parliamentary office and Mila Mulroney's office in the Lengevin Building.] You can ask me more, we’ve talked about it in the past, but that was, Doucet came to me saying that they’re doing certain things, renovations at 24 Sussex, that a massive project was being run by Colvin Design, that there were big expenditures up front and that they were going to require regular cash flow, and that there would be amounts in the range of 20 to 25 thousand dollars required on a regular basis, and I gave Doucet a whole lot of post-dated cheques so that he can…

But it isn’t, I never, ever had any concerns about signing authority, all those cheques were signed by two people in any event, they were done, they were handed, I personally handed over those cheques to Doucet, and they were given out, and then you know what all happened after that, and then one of my invoices, two or three invoices, was all paid by Mr. Mulroney out of his personal money.

SC: This is a sort of funny thing that’s come to me, basically through Richard Cleroux who is a very good friend and also assisted me on this book... and he’s helped me a good deal because he’s someone who’s done more work on travel expenses than I have, and I think this is where you and he did talk. He says that he has it from External Affairs officials… they set up a task force to handle the access requests from reporters about travel costs, and the general practice developed that when an access request was put in, then the PMO was told and then the money was recovered from the fund, in other words it sort of took the access request from the reporter to trigger the money from the fund…

DA: I don’t know any of that. What I do know, though, is that from time to time, it was quite analogous to the deal I had with Mr. Mulroney that, you know, when we felt there were some expenses that we paid that were of a personal nature, I would send him a bill. My understanding is that with traveling everything gets paid by the, whatever it is, the PCO, or the government, and when everything is being reviewed later on they say well that’s a personal expense, and so they would advise the Prime Ministers office that these particular events were of a personal nature, and they need to be reimbursed. And sometimes it was deemed that they were of a party nature. And so I would get a request to pay, and believe me I would scrutinize them, and I was known for being pretty damn tough on these things, and they would be paid if we felt they were appropriate to pay.

But yes it happened. I don’t know any of the reasons for it or whether it had anything to do with access or, … that was others.

And by the way, just on Richard Cleroux, I don’t think I’ve seen or spoken to Richard Cleroux for ten years. I knew him here in Montreal, we had a mutual friend and we would see each other socially. I may be wrong that we bumped in at a reception or something… maybe that was what Eric referred to and I don’t remember. No, I honestly don’t.

SC: I think he interviewed you about, I think he called you about when there was a trip to the Paris…

DA: When was that, right at the very beginning?

SC: That was in, the trip was in ‘86, the access requests were made…

DA: That’s possible, but I don’t think it happened, but it might have, and did I give him the story? The answers?

SC: No, you gave him pretty much what you’re telling me, and I was afraid that I would have to have Richard’s kind of … and I would rather ask you about it

DA: That’s how it would work, and I don’t know the beginning part. But I know that from time to time , bills that had already been paid to the supplier, be it a hotel or a restaurant, I would have to give a cheque to the Receiver-General for Canada, and I would have copies of the bills all broken out.

SC: Well in terms of entertaining for 24 Sussex Drive and that kind of thing, did you cover any of those bills?

DA: No, but I assumed, and I guess I was told, certainly it was a good healthy understanding, that the expense money that I made available, that the party threw me, made available, to the Mulroneys, was to cover, in part at least, entertaining at their home. For party things. Other than state affairs.

SC: So you mean, I don’t understand this, Mr. Angus.

DA: Let’s say that he had a dinner there. I don’t know, I didn’t have anything to do with organizing any of the entertaining at Sussex, nor did I ever get a bill to pay for any that I can remember. I may be wrong, there might have been some bills that I was asked to pay. For printing invitations, I seem to recall one or two. And I seem to recall some musicians, you know, that played at a deal where all the party executive were there for a Christmas reception. Those, I would have felt, were party morale builders, and they were held from time to time, and the leader, you know, quite properly would bring in the troops.

And that, I felt that it was, that the party, the money we paid for expenses would come out of that, would be used for that. Wouldn’t be used for some personal thing.

SC: This is difficult, this is where you and I have…

DA: Well let’s clear it up.

SC: OK. You’re saying, would you give Mr. Mulroney, then , expense money ahead of time which would cover these and then he did…

DA: Yeah, I explained that to you earlier. I…

SC: I misunderstood you. I thought you only paid for expenses that he had. It’s like when I go on a trip for the Globe, I have to bring back everything, I pay for everything, and then when I come back they pay me back. But what you’re saying is…

DA: We tried to even out the cash flow so that they would have moneys available to them to pay these expenses on a regular, even sort of on-going basis. So an amount was worked out after a budgeting process in discussions with the Mulroneys. And then it was divided by 12, and a monthly amount was paid. I was concerned that there might be a tax consequence; a ruling was obtained. And everything went on fine. That’s how it was done.

And all the vouchers and everything were supplied through the principal secretary’s office, to cover all amounts.

That might explain the catch. Because… I gave a cheque to the chief of staff in trust, once a month, like clockwork.

SC: Are you going to tell me how much it was?

DA: It was a modest sum. Believe me. And again… I’m not going to ,but…I can only assure that you … I think you would be quite surprised at how low it was. And it was a function of my Scottish… It was hard raising the money ...

But it was all cleared with the board. Everything that was done with any one cent of party funds was known by the board of the PC fund. Everything that was going on, and I mean I didn’t come in and say today we bought three Le Devoirs, four la Droits and 99 baskets of tulips, you know, I said this is what is happening, if anybody wants to know any more details, here come and see me. We didn’t sit around, you know, we dealt with broad matters of principle. Like in a bank board meeting or anywhere else, you have… but I absolutely made it a rule… like you, I don’t like all this stuff that’s going on, or alleged to be going on behind the scenes, and the people who are being affected not knowing about it, and so when I took on this job I made it a condition, and I selected the board of directors myself, and they were all told, and they all bought into this thing, and there was full disclosure and it was all agreed that it would be confidential, and it was our indoor management. And that’s why, you know, I was reluctant and I still am to discuss about those matters, because that’s other people’s fiduciary stuff. But that’s, the process I don’t mind discussing.

SC: Well, that’s very helpful to hear about this monthly cheque that went to Doucet. Now, you said you got a tax ruling. Is there any possibility that…

DA: I didn’t say Doucet, I said to the chief of staff. And… I think he might have been in that role…

SC: Well he handled the Prime Minister’s money and so on until…

DA: … before he was the Prime Minister I think…

SC: Well no… until he left, and then it would have been the chief of staff

DA: And certainly I’ve told you it was him I gave the Colvin cheques to. He dealt with me, I arranged for these cheques in the order of $20 to $25,000, over a long period of time up to an amount, gave me the cheques, he released them, I’m here in Montreal… and I didn’t want to be, that wasn’t my job, my job was to collect money.

SC: Well then it wasn’t your job, but Doucet was releasing some of those cheques…

DA: Absolutely. And I knew he would…

SC: Three a day!

DA: Well, I wrote up the cheques and I knew they weren’t going to bounce.

SC: I wish I could say the same for my own. What about this tax ruling, is it possible for us to get a copy of it?

DA: From me, no. Because, you know, that was done by the lawyers, Mr. Mulroney’s lawyers. [Bruce Verchere was Mulroney's tax lawyer as well as his trustee.] And I think he would be the appropriate person, I mean Mr. Mulroney, to ask. But I originally raised the idea as I said, and I assured myself, even though I don’t have any personal liability for that, and I like to do things that are done in the proper way for all the players. And I’m very comfortable that everything that was done, that I had anything to do with, was done in a proper way.

SC: And there, I assume that at times, if this amount was modest, then sometimes there would be additional things that you would have to cover on top of this money that you gave every month, because there might be a trip or something like that… that… this is not a trick question…

DA: No, I’m trying to listen to it.

SC: … Well, I’m sort of rambling here, but you gave what you thought would work out for an annual amount and you divided it up by twelve, but what happens when something…

DA: There were some other amounts from time to time, and if we paid them, as I’ve told you, I would bill him if I felt they were personal. And he would pay that, you know, he would pay it back. And there were other items that were presented as not in the ordinary expenses… that that other, amount… you know, … they might ask me, or Gerry [St. Germaine] or Bill Jarvis or Peter [Elzinga], various party presidents I’ve worked with, would come and say, you know, do you think it’s appropriate for the fund to pay. And this was one of the things you may have heard where I’ve had disagreements with the party, because my condition with Mr. Mulroney, and he’ll confirm it, was if I’m going to be in charge of collecting money I want to be in charge of that, you know, the controlling of the spending, because that’s where I saw the mess was, there was no control. You know, there were almost no paper trails of what had gone on before, and I set it up, you know, to the best of my ability, on a businesslike basis. It’s a big-business party.

So they had to ask me, you know, on anything out of the normal to pay an expense like that. So I’m telling you there were to be paid.

SC: As chairman you would have had to know pretty well all of the fundraisers…

DA: The way it worked, in my formula, is there would have been one or more directors of the fund, which is a corporation, which is the chief agent of the party, from each province. BC, for example, only one. We would negotiate out of budget for how much BC was supposed to raise. That individual then would get a team of volunteers to work with him or her and run BC. And I guess there would be people on those teams that I might not know. And that was right across the country. But I met most of them.

SC: How do two guys like Mario Taddeo [a Tory fundraiser and land developer - along with an employee - shot in his office, in a gravel pit in Mirabel, Quebec on December 4, 1987] and Henri Paquin [a Tory fundraiser and land developer blown up in his car on October 12, 1988 by a remote control bomb in St. Laurent, a Montreal suburb] ever get to be…

DA: I’ve never heard of… oh, those were the two guys that were killed? They were never fundraisers. They never were, honestly.

SC: They didn’t raise a penny for the party?

DA: Not that I am aware of, never saw a nickel. What might have been the confusion there, and this happens often, is that the ridings, under the law, the local constituencies in every province — how many are there? There were 275, 292 now, or something — they all can raise money and they don’t have to disclose. I mean it’s one of the loopholes in the law. I went to the Lortie commission and spoke on this, filed a brief, and it’s a loophole that should be filled! I mean, you can raise in Eglinton, or Rosedale or wherever you live, $50-million, and pay it to the PC Party Eglinton and no one would ever know. Doesn’t have to be disclosed, that never came to me, never comes to the PC Canada Fund, every cent that was ever collected that we see there’s a record of. I have to give a receipt for everything over $99, and did, copies of every receipt was filed in two places, the thirtieth of June every year, full disclosure, it’s there, a list this year, do I have to tell you. That might be, I remember reading PC Fundraiser Murder in North End, and I never heard of the first, ever.

SC: So they were doing what the guys who were raising money for LaSalle were doing, they were just freelancing in their own riding…[In fact, Taddeo was a fundraiser for Public Works Minister Roch LaSalle while Paquin was close to MP Michel Gravel, who also obtained money for LaSalle.]

DA: I don’t know what you’re talking about there at all, you might want to tell me. LaSalle, Roch LaSalle?

SC: He was sort of interesting because they had fundraisers for him, basically retirement fundraisers for him when he was leaving, I think he had three good-bye parties, I know at one of them they raised $50,000. None of the money ever went to the party as far as I could see, it went strictly into a kind of a constituency account, and the big debate was over whether LaSalle had access to that account himself, as many people believed he did, or whether that was money for the riding. But you’re saying that’s the loophole that you have a problem with…

DA: I’m saying you’re right on to that, and it’s something that I think you could render a service, because it should be cleaned up. It’s one of the problems of our… Apart from this one thing, in my opinion, and I’ve spoken all over the world on the subject, and that we have the best political fundraising laws in the world. They’re transparent, there’s accountability, if the law is obeyed, it works. The one exception is at the riding level. Other than in the writ period. During the writ period, and I take it you know what I mean by the writ period, then it’s controlled and it becomes in effect, the official agent in each riding is like the PC Fund. They’re accountable, they’re subject to the law, they can go to jail for seven years if they don’t follow the law. And they have to give receipts and all that stuff. But for the rest of the year, or years, between elections, I am the treasurer, you know, people could say, of the Rosedale Liberal Association, and I mean, the party never sees the money. … I try to encourage all our ridings. And I went across Canada and I enlisted the support of the president and the party itself to put in a system where, if they sent in the money, we would then be able to give a receipt to the donor so it would be easier for them to raise money. See, when you do it the way I was saying in the loophole way with the ridings, they can’t give receipts, you follow, because… they can’t give receipts that are good for tax, I’m the only one who can give those receipts, the central registered person.

SC: You’re kidding. I didn’t know that.

DA: That’s what’s so, you see, so annoying to me with this stuff written when it’s just so clear that I couldn’t have done those things anyway, because the law doesn’t… a riding goes out and says look, I’m working for Joe Blow, the upcoming candidate in somewhere, Don Valley East and we’ve got you down for a hundred bucks, please send, they send in… it can go right in your jeans, your purse. Bye-bye. No one ever going to see it. However. So I try to get our ridings to send all their money into the fund with the names of the people who gave it. We would put it into the PC fund, issue a receipt to the contributor, and we would charge 15 per cent as an administration charge, that would get the name into our records, that would give the person a tax receipt, that would enable the riding to have better-kept records, and it would ensure controls, to avoid precisely what you’re saying. By and large we’ve succeeded in this, but you never know. You never knew.

SC: …I didn’t know that you could give money provincially. I know…

DA: In a constituency level… there’s a certain number of MPs here that have gotten into trouble. Seem to have been more from Quebec than other ones… but there’s been quite a few from Ontario too, and out west. But you don’t have any control over them. And some of those people that get elected, it’s the best job that they’ve had in their life, and they can’t read a balance sheet. You know, this was the reality, when Mulroney was running for leader he would say Trudeau has 95 Quebec MPs. I think 17 or 18 of them were functionally illiterate. Functionally illiterate. And yet they have this huge budget that the House of Commons provides them. You know, to hire their granny, and that’s what was happening. And these are the abuses that I think, you know, I would like to be on the record as saying need to be cured, and I did say in the Lortie hearings on more than one occasion that that was my one recommendation. Because it’s a huge…

SC: Well I know that in the leaderships, that people can give money.

DA: Same thing applies to the leaderships.

SC: Because in Mulroney’s Nova Scotia campaign for the leadership, you say you know nothing about it, I actually know a lot about it because I have all the documents on it.

DA: Well, did I send a cheque or not? I bet I didn’t.

SC: That’s why I asked you if you sent the cheque. Certainly you were asked for a cheque…

DA: Yeah, well, I was asked for hundreds of cheques, and my answer was no. But if I slipped up or someone acting in my name at the headquarters, I would like to know about it. So if you have any evidence that I paid that cheque to Montgomery, please let me know.

SC: Okay. Now I’ve just about finished… I wanted to … In the case of Mulroney in the leadership I won’t ask you any more questions about that because you say you were not on that thing, but just out of interest sake, in the leadership fundraising that was done in Nova Scotia where there was three ways you could give money to the Mulroney leadership campaign, and one was money that would be partly given… with Brian Mulroney, and I think you also marked PC on it, I’d have to get the documents, and that way a percentage would also go to the fund. But then you could give money to Mulroney’s campaign that would be under another name, or you could give it to Montreal trust account number 830. …

DA: Well, I honestly don’t know, but I can tell you if it’s helpful to you, but all three ways are very standard ways of raising money. Some people in leaderships like to cross party lines because their friend Joe is running for leader. It’s a great act of public service — they are really an NDP or a Liberal, but they… don’t want it to show that they gave a cheque to the Joe Clark campaign, or the David Angus campaign. So the fundraisers set up these accounts in a trust company, which is all there, … properly run. You can’t do that raising for the party because there’s only one person that can do it, and that’s the registered agent. The one where you’d make it payable to in brackets, like Brian Mulroney Leadership Fund (PC Candidate), the party had a rule that if it was given through the party, the party would get a 15 percent administration fee as I’ve described to you, and that money would go back so they’d get less money for their campaign, but nonetheless the people giving would have more incentive to give because they’d get a tax receipt.

SC: They’d get a tax receipt. OK.

DA: And the third way I forget which was just campaign Mulroney or something, where people are … proud to give and don’t want a tax receipt. Those are the three ways I know.

SC: In Nova Scotia, one of them was called CDM Investments, where David Chipman, Fred Dickson and…

DA: I don’t know that. But again, it’s like my February 22 fund, I just dreamed that up.

SC: I only have one or two more questions, then I’ll get out of your hair here. … I’m just curious, are you still on the board of Air Canada?

DA: I am.

SC: Do you know whether Air Canada, this just saves me a call to Air Canada… Don’t laugh, I mean it’s just a business question here. Do they, I know Trudeau got a free lifetime pass on Air Canada, all previous prime ministers get a free lifetime pass, Clark had one. Do you know if Air Canada still does that?

DA: I have a good idea of what their practice is, but I’d rather you phone them. It’s just, again, it’s a fiduciary… you know, we swear an oath, and that’s the way it is.

SC: You swear an oath when you’re in a board of directors?

DA: Not, like, putting your hand on a bible, but it’s the law. You know, It’s a fiduciary thing, and it’s all secret and private. And that’s sort of company law.

SC: Has anyone asked you about the [Paul] Palango book, the money…[Paul Palango was a former Globe and Mail National Editor]

DA: Nobody asked me about it, but I heard that it had a whole chapter on a marine case that I was involved in for about three years of my practice, because I’m a marine lawyer, so I bought it , it’s called Above the Law, and I… It’s got a lot of weird stuff in it.

SC: Did you see the little paragraph on Air Canada?

DA: I haven’t seen… I guess I was just looking at that ship collision.

SC: Well you should look at… there’s a paragraph in there in which Palango says that Mulroney leaned on the board of Air Canada to pay Frank Moores the $5 million for his role in doing the Airbus deal.

DA: Well that’s absolutely crazy. I saw something, I didn’t see it in that book, but what I did see was a whole lot of stuff in the newspapers about five weeks ago, where it was just crazy and I saw Claude Taylor and people denying… I was on the board at that time, and as you pointed out I still am, there’s never been any payments like that ever made to the knowledge of the board…

SC: I’m through, but I know Rod had a question he wanted to ask you.

DA: No. He’s out of order. But let me ask you a couple. First of all I asked you earlier there…

[pause]

DA: You can ask the question.

RM: In one of the instances there was a cheque signed by you alone, … and I just wanted to know if that was common practice, that’s all. Those cheques you signed that you discussed earlier.

DA: Yes. There were many cheques that I signed alone. And … all accounts were audited, but the account that Mrs. Cameron referred to, and the cheque she referred to, that cheque was audited every three months. And I have a total file of letters saying it was handled in an above-board way.

But you were saying that your title is On the Take, I mean I don’t see anything here in your questions sort of…

SC: Mr. Angus, I already told you that I’m not saying that you’re on the take.

DA: Well what is this about , this on the take business?

SC: It’s a title that has not been formally decided upon, it may be called that, because we have…

DA: It sounds like money to me, that’s why, and you’ve said yourself that I was in charge of the money. And so I just wanted to know what you’re getting at.

SC: Mr. Angus, there’s a ton more money than anything that you were in charge of. I mean, you were in charge of the PC Canada Fund. And you have been very generous in your time and in your explanations. And I appreciate it, and I am not playing games with you. I wanted to know the answers to these questions.

DA: And I’ve given them. And I have seen this brochure, that your publisher I assume put out. Right?

SC: I haven’t seen… I don’t know what it is that she’s got here.

DA: Well, it says that you’ve written a book, and it says this, and I’d like to ask you about this… I used the expression earlier that a person in the public can draw inferences, they’re not sophisticated people like you and me, or Mr. Macdonell, that impugns something improper with stuff… I’m referring just to this one phrase, because I’d like to know where you’re coming from on this.

It says “On the Take uncovers the most effective political fundraising apparatus ever assembled in Canada, at its height raking in $25 million in a single year, that was built on a well-crafted system of rewards, from cozy dinners at 24 Sussex to fat government contracts with tender. It encompasses a widespread kickback scheme that made sure a number of politicians received 5 per cent of the value of every government lease or public works job they granted. It examines the disturbing degree to which the influence of organized crime penetrated the party in power right up to the cabinet level.”

Now, if you were me, you know, with my record and I’ve been a volunteer and you did that thing, I think it’s a fair question for me to ask you, what is this illegal fundraising thing built on organized crime?

SC: First of all I have to say to you that I think you’ve leapt to a conclusion in your sentence there that is not true.

DA: No, I just read there…

SC: … I’m not saying that your fundraising operation had anything to do with organized crime, but I am not prepared to talk about this book with you at this stage. I told you at the outset that I feel that your own reputation has never been sullied, that you and I have had our differences, you are the fundraiser of a very wealthy party at one time that isn’t now… I have had Elections Canada check for me all the amounts that have been raised by all the parties, they sent back a corrected version of a chart I had done, and it wasn’t $25 million, I hear it was $24.5, an extraordinary accomplishment

DA: ‘84

SC: No, I think it was 88.

DA: Well, 84 and 88 were election years.

SC: … But I am just saying to you I cannot discuss chapters of the book in which you are not involved…

DA: That’s your prerogative. All I’m asking is to be fair. That’s why I’m amazed you didn’t receive the letter cause you received my other letter… you told my secretary my manuscript was finished, I said could you then bring it, at least the parts related to me, so I could have a chance of giving my side of the story to the extent it may differ from yours. But can I assume you’re not saying I ran an illegal fundraising organization?

SC: Of course you didn’t, and I would never say that.

DA: I’m not saying you wrote that screed there, but that’s out in the public as you know, to promote the sales, it’s saying how many pages the book is, what the price is, so it’s obviously finished, obviously ready to go.

SC: It’s not ready to go. The main manuscript is done, what I have to do now is come to people like you and say, look at all the things we discussed today. I needed to hear your response. In some cases it changes what I write, and I have lots of time to do that. In some cases I will disagree with you. Because I have a source that I think is reliable, and you’re denying it, or you’re saying no that’s not true.

DA: Well is there anything that I’m saying where you have proof that I’m lying.

SC: Of course not. But I’m just saying to you that if I have a reliable source, you’re not going to give me the audited financial statements that you, or your receipts from Mr. Mulroney or anything like that. So I am taking your word for it.

DA: Right, and I wouldn’t be silly enough to sit here and, what would be in it for me to tell you anything but the truth to the best of my ability. And that’s what I’ve done. So I think it’s quite fair, first of all, to make sure as I think you’ve just confirmed, there’s nothing I’ve said that you say is a falsehood.

SC: I don’t believe that you’ve told me a falsehood. But I will be saying in this book some of the things you’ve told me.

DA: Other people have another version.

SC: Other people have another version.

Uninvited

Almost as soon as I was invited to appear, I was uninvited. So many witnesses, so little time.

An invitation to appear

My e-vite from the Commons Ethics Committee arrived yesterday:

Good Afternoon Ms. Cameron,
I am contacting you on behalf of the Standing Committee on Access to Information Privacy and Ethics. The Committee would like to invite you to appear as a witness regarding the Mulroney Airbus Settlement on the 29th on January from 3:30 to 5:30 pm.
Please confirm that you are available for this date either by email or by calling me at the number below, and I will give you more details.
Thank you,
Erica Pereira,
Committee Clerk

"So how many other journalists have been invited?" I asked.
"And who are they?"
Two, I was told. Myself and Norman Spector.
"Norman Spector is not a journalist," I said. "He was Mr. Mulroney's chief of staff, Canadian ambassador to Israel and was made president of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency."
He was also a senior bureaucrat in British Columbia and today, in retirement, he writes highly partisan columns and a blog.
Other journalists' names were originally on the list submitted by committee menmbers, but they have disappeared. So, in fact, only one journalist is appearing: me. And that's because the committee believes, I was told, that I know more about the case than the others and because I wrote a book about it.