The Mulroney Quarantine

I have been watching this recent contrived dust up between the current ruling Canadian Conservative Government and Brian Mulroney. I don’t get what all the fuss is about, and I assume the left leaning CBC journalists whom are banging the drum most loudly are making much ado about nothing. If anything, they are attempting to create a fissure within the Conservative party comparable to the collapse and partition that occurred after Mulroney abdicated. I was never a fan of Mulroney, though I was heading into my freshman year of high school when he passed the reigns on to Kim Campbell.

Evidently Mulroney was not very popular with Canadians at the end of his reign of fire, as evidenced by the two seats and destruction of the PC party that followed in his wake. There have long been extensive rumours, allegations, and investigations into Mulroney taking cash money in envelopes under the table in return for government favours. I have a 500 page book on my bookshelf called "On The Take" by Stevie Cameron that outlines in detail Mulroney corruption. None of the charges or allegations have stuck in court, yet, but we are about to embark in a new inquiry into his shady deals, where he admittedly accepted at least $250,000 for what he described he thought was a gift??? No strings??? Mulroney, who eventually claimed that money on a tax return, says that he took the money from the Arms Dealer, but did not do anything for it…or at least that we know of.

I get why the left-wing are trying to pour gasoline on the issue and over-exaggerate the repercussions of the alleged Mulroney extradition from Tory membership by the PMO. It makes perfect sense that the ruling government would want to quarantine their former leader as an Inquiry begins into his accepting cash money from an arms dealer. Now I watched this Schreiber clown testify on the first day of the Inquiry, and to say this man has no credibility is an understatement. One thing we know for sure is that the Bear Head project he was trying to bribe Mulroney to adopt as a government contract was never accepted. Whether or not Mulroney should have taken the money on moral grounds is debatable, but it is virtually certain that he will never be found guilty of a criminal act.

This Schreiber clown frequently contradicts himself, changes his testimony, and pleads ignorance when backed into a corner. He claimed to have no idea that the Bear Head company that he was the Chairman of made political donations to the Liberal Party prior to the 1993 election. Meanwhile, he wrote it in his diary two weeks before the election. $5,000 to Chretien and $5,000 to Paul Martin. The only time I saw him smile in the whole ordeal was when the prosecutor mentioned that the Conservatives only won two seats in the 1993 election, which was followed by the Crown asking why he continued to make cash bribes to Mulroney after he was left powerless. Great question. Bribing a politician to accept a military contract when the politician does not even hold a seat in parliament, let alone the Prime Minister’s Office, is just stupid.

So I applaud Prime Minister Harper for putting Mulroney under quarantine while this Inquiry is in progress. Do I think Mulroney will be convicted of anything criminal, not at all. My bet is by the end any Canadian paying attention will think; let’s just never again have anything to do with Karlheinz Shreiber. We will have heard all we need to know by the end of this charade. But temporarily quarantining Mulroney is a must do because all those blowhards like Don Newman, Chantal Hebert, Susan Bonner, and even Peter Mansbridge are going to beat that dead horse for all it is worth while the Inquiry is on TV. Any pundit who wants to see another split in the Conservative party will squeeze every last drop they can out of this mess. To think the Conservative party will split again is wishful thinking gone awry. We already took our long march through the wilderness; we will never again split into two parties. That led to over a decade of Liberal rule, which explains why the Liberals are so excited to hypothesize it will happen again, but it won't.