Frances Russell of the Winnipeg Free Press has an interesting take on the Karlheinz Schreiber controversy.

She points to an alleged affidavit in which Brian Mulroney states that Jean Chretien and his people interfered in the original RCMP investigation into Mulroney's connections with Schreiber:

"Contrary to everything Jean Chretien had said, there was, Mulroney advised me, reason to believe that officials in both the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister's Office were well aware of the RCMP investigation and may even have reviewed the letter to Switzerland -- the one that flat out called him a criminal -- before it was sent. If this was true, it would be a huge scandal, demonstrating government interference with the police at the highest levels. Mulroney possessed an affidavit to that effect, he claimed, and he would let me see it when the time was right."

In a later call, Mulroney told Kaplan he would "write a letter to the new prime minister (Paul Martin) asking for a new investigation and a royal commission into this cabal and conspiracy. I plan to tell Martin that this is the only thing that will clarify it all... By the way, Paul Martin views this thing as a huge scandal and it wouldn't offend him if his predecessor was caught up in this."

That investigation ultimately ended with Mulroney being exonerated, and the government paying him $2.1 million in legal costs and offering up an official apology.

This sort of thing would turn the Schreiber controversy around and put the Liberals under the microscope:

If Mulroney's affidavit exists, it will be as damning as Schreiber's recent affidavit that his $300,000 "business partnership" with Mulroney was sealed at the prime minister's Harrington Lake summer residence on June 23, 1993, two days before Mulroney left office.

Even better, from Mulroney's standpoint, it will require Chretien's and possibly Martin's attendance at the new public inquiry.

With Jack Layton making a serious play to have the NDP replace the Liberals in the Canadian political landscape, it does not benefit Layton for the Liberals to hurt the Conservatives. Ideally, he wants the controversy to weaken them both, but the Liberals have to take the brunt of the punishment if the NDP is going to take large numbers of votes from the Liberals in the next election cycle.

Russell says this is exactly what Jack Layton is trying to to make happen:

Given that the Harper Conservatives may allow Schreiber to be extradited to Germany and Schreiber says he will then refuse to testify, the inquiry could end up being more about Liberals than Mulroney. And evidence is mounting that New Democrats are working with Conservatives to go after Liberals with all guns blazing.

The very day Prime Minister Stephen Harper bent to Mulroney's demand for the inquiry, Winnipeg North Centre NDP MP Pat Martin rushed to the microphones to allege a company associated with Schreiber had made a $10,000 donation to the Liberals.

Last Thursday, newly elected Outremont NDP MP Thomas Mulcair went further, adding the name of Pierre Trudeau's deputy prime minister, Allan MacEachen, to Schreiber's web of influence-peddling. "Decades of shady dealings" and "sustainable corruption" exist, Mulcair proclaimed under the protection of parliamentary immunity.

Also last week, Harper's Quebec lieutenant, Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon, picked up where Mulroney left off in his 2003 conversations with Kaplan, insisting Chretien explain why his government paid Mulroney $2.1 million.

"At the end of the day, it was under Mr. Chretien's period of office that people found out that Mr. Mulroney was completely exonerated," said Cannon. "So, if Mr. Chretien or his successor have any problem with that, maybe they should start by explaining why at that time they paid Mr. Mulroney a compensation for being unjustly accused."

Can this Schreiber nonsense really blow up in Stephane Dion's face?

I've belonged to a shooting range. One of the first things you learn is that when you pull the trigger and nothing happens, one of two things is possible.

• The round was a dud and nothing will happen.
• The round is flawed, is burning slowly, and will misfire in a moment or two, so be prepared for a messy shot.

Either way, your target is safe, and you are the one at risk of getting hurt.

Stephane Dion has fired the Schreiber shot, and the latest poll suggests that it is a misfire:

Fallout from the Brian Mulroney-Karlheinz Schreiber affair has not hurt Stephen Harper's Conservative government, a new poll suggests. The CP Harris-Decima survey indicates the Conservatives actually increased their lead over the Liberals, despite days of highly charged politicking over the dealings between the former prime minister and the German-Canadian businessperson.

The poll, conducted last weekend, showed the Conservatives with 36 per cent support, compared with 28 per cent for the Liberals.

The NDP were at 17 per cent, the Greens, 11, and eight per cent of respondents backed the Bloc Quebecois.

Pollster Bruce Anderson said the data suggests the opposition hasn't been able to exploit the Mulroney-Schreiber situation. What Stephane Dion and the Liberals may have seen as a heaven-sent opportunity to knock the Tories off-stride has apparently not connected with voters.

"Mr. Dion hasn't been able to create a political opportunity," Anderson said.

Is this dud going to die like the CIMS controversy or the In-and-Out Scandal?

In those cases, Stephane Dion and the Liberals tried to manufacture controversies, but the rounds were duds.

But the Schreiber story is different. For one, the media interest is much higher. The Liberals have invested a lot into the Schreiber issue, essentially kicking their anti-poverty announcement to the curb in order to apply all their efforts on this.

And the potential that this will become a Liberal scandal is certainly there. I'm not sure how high that risk is, but really, the risk ought to be exactly zero. The fact that we even think the possibility exists is just bizarre.

And some would say the risk is rather high. Schreiber has no credibility with a lot of people, which suggests that the Conservatives are probably safe. In any case, the poll shows that Canadians are not connecting Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives of the 80s and 90s with Stephen Harper and the Conservatives today.

On the other hand, the Liberals under Stephane Dion are the same Liberals who served under Jean Chretien. Stephane Dion was brought into politics by Jean Chretien and was Chretien's protege in many ways. Stephen Harper wasn't even a member of the Progressive Conservatives but of the rival Reform Party when all this happened.

If an investigation into the Schreiber story uncovers actions by the Chretien Liberals that smell even slightly scandalous, Canadians will easily draw a direct line from Jean Chretien to Stephane Dion. If Canadians have any doubts, Stephen Harper and Jack Layton will work very hard to make sure those doubts are dispelled.

The real risk for Stephane Dion, though, is that in his precarious position, even a minor misfire could be fatal. The Liberals continue to languish in the polls. Other polls rank Stephane Dion as the least respected leader of a federal party by a wide margin. The Liberals under Stephane Dion are a non-entity in much of Quebec, replaced by the Conservatives, a party led by an Albertan born and raised in Toronto.

The knives are still out for Stephane Dion. If the Schreiber thing blows back on the Liberals, even a little bit, Stephane Dion might be out of a job, having fired one dud too many.

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