Prime Minister Stephen Harper has dismissed calls by opposition parties for a public inquiry into reports about cash payments made to former prime minister Brian Mulroney, saying allowing the government to launch probes against former political adversaries was "extremely dangerous."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, left, photographed with former prime minister Brian Mulroney in April, said Friday that the government should not have a 'free hand' in investigating political predecessors through the use of public inquiries.
(Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

"Do they really want to say that I, as prime minister, should have a free hand to launch inquiries against my predecessors?" Harper asked reporters Friday in Halifax following a speech to the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples.

During question period Friday, opposition members renewed their calls for an inquiry following German businessman Karlheinz Schreiber's interview with CBC's The Fifth Estate earlier this week.

Schreiber said there was an attempted coverup to save Mulroney's reputation after Schreiber made $300,000 in cash payments to the former prime minister when he was out of office between 1993 and 1994.

Mulroney wanted Schreiber to provide a statement that the former prime minister at no time solicited or received compensation of any kind from the German businessman, Schreiber told The Fifth Estate. But Schreiber did not provide Mulroney with it.

The program also revealed that Mulroney did not pay taxes on the payments in the years he received the money. He later made a voluntary disclosure of the income to Revenue Canada.

Harper also issued a thinly-veiled warning to the Liberals, saying he could use the opportunity to investigate former prime minister Jean Chrétien's involvement in the controversial sale of a golf course in his Quebec riding — even though the justice system has already dealt with the matter.

In 2000, former ethics counsellor Howard Wilson ruled Chrétien did not violate existing conflict-of-interest rules.

Or, Harper said, he could also launch an inquiry to look into Paul Martin's involvement with Canada Steamship Lines, a company Martin held in trust and later handed to his sons while he was prime minister.

"This is not a route that I want to go down," Harper said. "And I don't think that if the Liberal party thought twice about it, it is a power they would want to give me."

Mulroney received an apology in 1997

The prime minister noted that Mulroney successfully sued for libel and received an apology from the Chrétien government and a $2.1-million settlement in 1997 — paid by Canadian taxpayers — after the RCMP investigated allegations that Mulroney accepted kickbacks from Schreiber for the purchase of a large order of Airbus jets when he was still in office.

"I think this suggestion that a government would use its authority not to allow the authorities to investigate as they see appropriate, but to launch politically driven inquiries into its political opponents, is extremely dangerous," Harper said.

Schreiber, who is currently suing Mulroney over the money, has said the payments, handed out in hotel rooms between 1993 and 1994, were intended to enlist his help in establishing an arms factory in Quebec and, later, a pasta business in Ontario.

Mulroney has never explained his side of the story about the payments.

Spokesmen for Mulroney have said only that he was out of public life at the time of his dealings with Schreiber, and that the money was paid in connection with private business deals.

With files from the Canadian Press