On April 16, Karlheinz Schreiber testified before the Oliphant Commission that he met privately with Brian Mulroney only once, and added, "I don't want to talk about this now."
At the time, he was being cross-examined by Guy Pratte, Mr. Mulroney's lawyer, who chose not to follow up on this tantalizing revelation.
Yesterday, the Oliphant commission's chief counsel asked Mr. Schreiber about that meeting. Here's how cbc.ca reported their exchange:
"What's left out there, is a suspicion, because there are lot of suspicions ... and I want to clear up that suspicion," Wolson said.
Schreiber confirmed that the meeting was about a man who was a mutual acquaintance of Schreiber and Mulroney who was having some personal difficulties and that they were trying to see if they could help the man.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the matters before this inquiry," Wolson said.
"No," Schreiber said.
Here's my question:
Since when does a witness-or even the chief counsel--have the right to decide what is relevant and what is not to the work of a commission set up by the government? Is that not the prerogative of the Chairperson? And, unless there are compelling privacy concerns at play, shouldn't the identity of the "mutual acquaintance" be known to Canadians, in order that we, too, can form our own opinions about the relevance of the secret meeting to the work of the commission?
