Information & Ethics committee  If I could just conclude that answer, Mr. Martin, that same language was used for the other two as well. I believe one of them at the time had also commenced a lawsuit. So it was felt that it was in the public interest to avoid further payments to get that done. Let me answer your second question.

Information & Ethics committee  No. I never met the man.

Information & Ethics committee  No.

Information & Ethics committee  The decision to settle was made by the government. Mr. Gray, who was the Solicitor General of Canada, and I shared the responsibility for responding to this litigation in court. Did we undertake any investigations ourselves? The answer is no. We asked our counsel to represent us in court, to ask questions—

Information & Ethics committee  It is not up to me to tell the RCMP what to do. Mr. Gray, the Solicitor General of Canada, was accountable to the House of Commons for the RCMP. I know that the RCMP continued its investigation after the civil matter was settled. It continued until 2003, I believe, and then it announced it would be closing the file.

Information & Ethics committee  All I would say is that it is difficult now, in 2008, to imagine what we would have done had we had the information we have today. As I said to Mr. Murphy, I am sure that if the information about the payments made by Mr. Schreiber to Mr. Mulroney had been known at the time, that would have had a tremendous impact on the civil litigation.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, sir.

Information & Ethics committee  At the time, I was told that we had to inform the holders of the Swiss bank accounts. If the RCMP, through the government, asked for access to documents related to a particular bank account in Switzerland, the holder of the bank account must be informed and given a copy of the letter of request.

Information & Ethics committee  They certainly received notification, but I have no information about what they did after that.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I believe they did. In fact, one of the terms of the settlement agreement provided that it would have no effect on the RCMP's sole decision and discretion to continue the investigation until they felt it had been concluded.

Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Chairman, it's difficult to be categorical when you're looking back 10 years and assuming the facts of the case are different and speculating on the outcome. I can say that had there been disclosure at the time of the cash payments by Mr. Schreiber to Mr. Mulroney and the circumstances in which they were made, it would have had a dramatic effect on that litigation.

Information & Ethics committee  Let me say that if you assume the cash payments had been disclosed, I do not believe the recommendation would have been to settle on those terms. That does not mean it might not have settled on some other terms, but I don't believe the recommendation would have been to settle on those terms in the face of the facts we now know.

Information & Ethics committee  I have no idea what they knew. Certainly Mr. Gray never raised it with me.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm afraid I don't know what happened, what they were and weren't briefed about, but I know there is a procedure that one can invoke to ask the court to set aside an agreement, particularly a settlement agreement, if you take the position that it was obtained under something less than full disclosure.

Information & Ethics committee  Mrs. Lavallée, what I said in my statement is that at the time, in light of the answers provided by Mr. Mulroney, and as parties involved in civil litigation, we reached a settlement. He said he had not had any agreements with Mr. Schreiber. We accepted Mr. Mulroney's testimony.