From The Mississauga News
John Stewart
February 11, 2008
Mississauga South MP Paul Szabo says it is not the responsibility of the House of Commons Ethics Committee he chairs to "cut a deal" with Karlheinz Schreiber to get to the bottom of the Airbus scandal.
Szabo, the Liberal MP first elected in 1993, was reacting to a suggestion from the vice-chair of the committee, NDP MP Pat Martin, that the committee strike a deal granting Schreiber immunity in return for in-depth information about what happened in the lobbying scandal.
Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has admitted he made a mistake in accepting $300,000 in cash from Schreiber, who wanted the PM to lobby for the Airbus contract on Schreiber's behalf.
"Who cares if Schreiber walks if we can get to the bottom of this scandal?" Martin said.
But Szabo believes that kind of deal-making is not within the committee's jurisdiction.
"The attorney general for Canada is the person in charge of advising the Crown on what they should do in these matters," he said. "This is not the committee's purview or authority but the committee may very well make a recommendation to ... the attorney general that certain actions are available to the Crown and they may wish to consider it."
The ethics committee resumes its hearings into the incident again tomorrow in Ottawa. Both Schreiber and Mulroney are scheduled to appear before the committee once again before hearings end on Feb. 28.
