Law Times

January 19, 2009

The premier weekly newspaper for the legal profession in Ontario

Issue link: https://digital.lawtimesnews.com/i/50557

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 6 of 15

Law Times • January 19, 2009 Mulroney's reputation on the line again he reputation of former prime minister Brian Mul- roney is on the line again for stuff going back two decades ago. Manitoba Associate Chief Justice T Jeff Oliphant heads a commission of inquiry establishing whether Mul- roney acted ethically when he took hundreds of thousands of dollars from German-Canadian arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber in hotel rooms in New York and Montreal back in 1993 and 1994. It should be the best inquiry show in town since Justice John Gomery was here in 2005. Ironically Oliphant has chosen to hold his inquiry in the Old Ottawa City Hall, a magnifi cent steel-and- glass building on the Rideau River where Justice John Gomery's Com- mission of Inquiry into the sponsor- ship scandal destroyed so many polit- ical reputations and toppled the Paul Martin government. Oliphant will spend a whole year trying to sort out the strange political and business relationship between the famous politician and the arms dealer who used to be the best of friends. The Oliphant inquiry is off to a careful start. So far they've been dis- cussing which laws, regulations, and codes of ethics should be used to pass an ethical judgment on Mulroney. It was Mulroney who started all this back in 2003 by demanding a public inquiry to clear his name once and for all in the Airbus scan- dal and promised to attend and testify "with bells on." Three years later Stephen Harper was in power and had no choice but to set up the inquiry for his old friend. After all, Mulroney had been part of his transition team. But then the Commons ethics committee cranked up its own inves- tigation into the affair and put Mul- roney on the stand. He explained how he took the cash in private hotel room meetings in Montreal and New York. Some of it went into a safety deposit box in a New York bank, while the rest went into a safe in his home in Mont- real. Six years later he paid taxes on it. Mulroney testifi ed that he was hired by Schreiber to sell Canadian- manufactured armoured vehicles de- signed by the German fi rm Thyssen Industrie. They were to have been built at a plant in Quebec or Nova Scotia. Schreiber testifi ed he hired Mulroney to lobby the Kim Campbell govern- ment to buy the armoured vehicles. Mulroney testifi ed he was hired to lobby overseas, not in Canada, be- cause he was not registered to lobby in Canada at the time. No registration is required to lobby overseas. Mulroney says he got into a plane and took off for France, China, and Russia to sell the light personnel tanks. Regrettably all the leaders of those countries have since died and are no longer able to corroborate his testimony. No sales were ever made. Schreiber says since no sales were made, he wants his money back. Mul- roney insists he did the work. It just didn't pay off in sales. Mulroney no longer seems so keen on having a commission of inquiry, bells on or not. But it is too late. The inquiry is on. Harper tried to limit the scope of the inquiry, ordering the judge to leave out the part about the $1.8-billion purchase of Airbus jets The Hill By Richard Cleroux back in 1988. But a strange thing happened last summer. The Globe and Mail and the CBC's Fifth Estate brought out a document written by Mulroney's one-time chief of staff, lobbyist Fred Doucet, which seems to contradict Doucet's sworn testimony before the Commons committee that he knew nothing about Airbus. Keen on getting his version of the Airbus facts across, Doucet ap- proached Oliphant and demanded standing at the inquiry to give his side of the story. The judge said yes. Judges running commissions of inquiry have a habit of going beyond the limitations that politicians impose on them. That means that Airbus is back on the table. It will be diffi cult to keep it out of the discussion. There are questions to be answered: Why did Mulroney wait six years to pay taxes on the money? What about Mulroney's over- seas trips? Are there ticket reserva- tion documents, receipts? Did any of those foreign leaders have aides who kept notes on the talks? Are there agenda books or other documents showing evidence of armoured vehicle discussions? Perhaps some former aides of those leaders are still alive and may have taken their own notes. Selling tanks to Russians and Com- munist Chinese required a very spe- cial export permit back then. Maybe Mulroney took out such permits. Per- haps the Export Development Bank was involved, or perhaps Canadian ambassadors in those countries sat in on the talks, or briefed Mulroney ahead of time. Maybe Canada's for- eign affairs department has records of what was discussed. The possibil- ities are endless. The inquiry pits some of the country's top lawyers against each other. Mulroney is represented by Guy Pratte of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Ottawa, while Schreiber has Richard Auger of Auger Hollingsworth, Ot- tawa, plus Edward Greenspan and Vanessa Christie of Greenspan Part- ners, Toronto. Both Pratte and Auger are seasoned Gomery inquiry veterans. Doucet has hired Robert Hous- ton, of Burke Robertson LLP, Ot- tawa. The taxpayers are paying Dou- cet's bills. The Attorney General has Paul Vickery. Richard Wolson of Winnipeg, Nancy Brooks of Ottawa, Evan Roit- enberg of Winnipeg, and Giuseppe Battista of Montreal are the commis- sion counsels. Once the pubic hearings start on March 31 and witnesses take the stand it should be quite a spectacle, the best legal show in town since Justice Gomery and his "juicy de- tails" inquiry. Oliphant's report is expected to be ready Dec. 31. LT Richard Cleroux is a freelance repor- ter and columnist on Parliament Hill. His e-mail address is richardcleroux@ rogers.com. www.lawtimesnews.com LSG 1/2 4x.indd 1 from the courtroom, claiming the move to digital reporting and typing pools is a "tech- nological advancement," if truth be told, the government need only look to real-time (voice- to-text), shorthand reporters to truly see tech- nology at its best. Briefl y, W real-time court reporting is a pro- cess whereby a trained court reporter, using a steno machine, note- book computer, and real-time software, pro- vides instant word-for-word, speech-to-text translation for display. When the software was initially developed, the only person who could benefi t from the real-time display was the court reporter; there was no ability for others to view the text. But today, a whole host of options and uses are available. Real time in the litigation setting — law- yers and judges may use their laptops, which are loaded with litigation support software such as Summation, to view the real-time feed directly from the reporter. Advantages of this include the ability to read the testi- mony as it is occurring; to mark and annotate text during the discovery or hearing or later; to perform word searches instantly; to print the transcript at day's end; and to be able to conduct a review of the day's testimony with colleagues and experts prior to the conclusion of an examination. For those who are un- comfortable with the presence of a computer in front of them during a hearing, a rough draft transcript can be produced at day's end with this technology. Real time via the Internet — not only can counsel be connected to the court reporter's lap- top, but experts or co-counsel can log into the hearing via the Internet and view the testimony as it's happening. Vendors such as LiveNote and Speche provide a secure site on the web where invitees may log into the streaming real-time text of the hearing. With instant messaging fea- tures, for example, co-counsel could send mes- sages back and forth with comments, questions to ask, and the like. Wireless technology — many real-time re- porters are now using secure wireless real-time "send" and "receive" devices. You can be sit- ting 300 feet away from the court reporter and receive your real-time transcript text with no COMMENT Court reporting technology update BY KIM NEESON For Law Times hile the Ontario government is ap- parently embarking on yet another attempt to remove court reporters wires to trip over. Multiple participants in the hearing can be connected to the wireless feed; as such, this technology in particular lends it- self to large cases where counsel may be far away from the reporter and the witness and in diffi cult hearing range of the proceedings. Sync'd videotaped proceedings with tran- Speaker's Corner script — by using a real-time reporter and trained videographer, a videotape (CD-ROM or other formats), and transcript of the pro- ceedings can be "sync'd" together, so that the spoken word and the written record appear simultaneously on the screen for viewing. File formats — real- time court reporting software is "end-user" friendly. File formats for litigation support programs like Summation and LiveNote, as well as word processing formats, are easily producible by the court reporter. This fea- ture is a real timesaver for law clerks in par- ticular, who are often tasked with making a fi le "work" with the fi rm's litigation support software. Hearing diffi culties — real-time reporting can allow those with any kind of hearing loss to fully participate in the proceedings. My fi rm, Neeson and Associates, has provided this type of service to deaf and hard-of-hear- ing lawyers, and also to other participants in the justice system, including accused persons and witnesses. Real-time reporting can also assist those for whom English is a second language or who may have certain learning disabilities, where not only hearing the spoken word but seeing it gives these people a better understanding of what is being said. Real-time reporting technology is being applied to many other non-legal applications, such as captioning on television, captioning in live situations (to name but a few — confer- ences, business meetings, counselling sessions, weddings, graduations, educational classes) and web casting of meetings. High-quality production of voice-to-text transcription as performed by a highly trained, real-time court reporter has not been surpassed by any voice activation software to date. The gold standard has been set by the technology and highly trained court reporter working hand-in-glove. LT Kim Neeson is president of Neeson & Associates Court Reporting and Captioning Inc. Her e-mail address is kim_neeson@neesoncourtreporting. com. PAGE 7 an accident? Need to reconstruct court reporter? Find a a settlement? $ Structure www.legalsuppliersguide.com for hundreds of suppliers across Canada NEW & IMPROVED Refined search capabilities, complete contact details and directlinks to suppliers helps you find the service you need RIGHT NOW! Legal Suppliers Guide The legal community's business-to-business site 1/14/09 4:09:39 PM

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of Law Times - January 19, 2009