OTTAWA - The head of the Commons ethics committee is suggesting Brian Mulroney could be held in contempt of Parliament if he doesn't produce documents related to the Karlheinz Schreiber affair.
"It's a matter of fundamental authority of Parliament,'' Liberal MP Paulo Szabo told The Canadian Press on Thursday.
"The committee would look very weak if it didn't take all necessary steps to get that information.''
At issue is a summons that Szabo sent to Mulroney's lawyer earlier this week demanding documentation on:
_ Names, dates, and other details of meetings with politicians and officials in several countries that Mulroney says he undertook as part of lobbying efforts on behalf of Schreiber.
_ A precise explanation of how Mulroney spent $75,000 he received from Schreiber and kept in a safe deposit box. The cash was part of a larger series of payments that eventually added up to $225,000 according to Mulroney and $300,000 according to Schreiber.
In a separate letter to Mulroney counsel Guy Pratte, Szabo also demanded an assurance that the former Conservative prime minister would personally appear at the ethics committee on Feb. 28 to testify for a second time on the affair.
As of Thursday, there had been no response from the Mulroney camp on either the documents or the personal appearance.
Pratte did not return phone calls or e-mail messages, while Joseph Lavoie, a media spokesman for Mulroney, declined to comment.
Szabo insisted he wasn't making any threats, maintaining that "a statement of fact is never a threat.''
But it is a fact, he said, that the all-party committee could ask the full House of Commons to find Mulroney in contempt if he doesn't bow to their will.
"If you decide to summons a person or a paper or records and people ignore you, you always have the choice of doing nothing,'' said the committee chairman.
"But that tells you more about Parliament than it does about the people who ignored your summons.
"We've been saying all along we have the authority to do certain things. If you're not prepared to act on those authorities . . . this is a sign of weakness. You have to protect the authority of Parliament.''
Szabo said he still hopes an amicable solution can be found with Mulroney and a showdown averted.
Any recommendation by the committee to find Mulroney in contempt would require a vote of the full panel, he said. And a final decision would be up to the full Commons.
But Szabo made it clear that his personal advice to fellow MPs would be to push ahead if they don't get a satisfactory response from Mulroney and his legal team.
"I've given this careful thought and it's not being said lightly,'' he said. "This is extremely important. I have a lot of confidence in the committee to do the right thing.''
Contempt of Parliament is an ancient concept, but the sanction has rarely been invoked in modern times.
A person held in contempt can be subject to whatever penalty MPs decides, from a tongue-lashing to fines or even jail time.
