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Sunday, February 14th, 2010
Abridged Timeline:
1. CBC News, The Fifth Estate: November 8th 2007: German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber files an affidavit alleging he negotiated a $300,000 lobbying deal with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney at the prime minister’s Harrington Lake retreat two days before Mulroney stepped down as prime minister in 1993.
2. Canadian Press, December 14, 2007: Canada Post investigators and Ottawa police narrow the field of suspects in the hunt for the person behind some letters from Santa that contain curse words and descriptions of lewd acts.
3. MSN News, September 16, 2009: Questions of credibility and wrong-doing continue to dog Mulroney. His relationship with Schreiber becomes the focus of further concern as the businessman makes public documents showing where and when Mulroney took cash payments for lobbying jobs. The allegations result in a commission called by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, headed by Mr. Justice Jeffrey Oliphant. Earlier this year Schreiber was extradited to Germany to face charges of bribery, tax evasion and fraud.
It’s the story that refuses to die, and so, yours truly, intrepid tabloid reporter and all-round diva Renta Yenta, has decided to come clean, to cough up the ganze megilla—that is, to fill you in on the whole pungent, sordid story…
WARNING: rated X for explicit content (rutting goats, sweaty reindeer, Santa Claus, Brian Mulroney, Karlheinz Schreiber, political corruption).
Maybe it was inevitable, given the pressure on him and all, but still, I was shocked when, just days before Christmas of 2007, the
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world was confronted with Santa’s strange behaviour—writing letters to kids filled with swearing and descriptions of lascivious behaviour…After I roused myself from my daydream, I realized this wasn’t the Santa Claus the world knew and loved.
I smelled a rat.
And so, partly to cope with my own devastation (some of my best friends are Christian, see?), I decided to apply my particular perspicacity and get to the bottom of it. After all, I know a good story when it bites me on the ass. And sometimes a newsgal’s just gotta make a living.
No matter who gets hurt.
Soon as I pulled myself together, I jumped on the blower. And before you can say “Merry Christmas,” bingo! I discovered that good ol’ Santa was on a publication-banned court-ordered stress leave that stretched from the middle of December to 5 p.m. Christmas Eve. All provided, of course, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer.
I couldn’t reach Santa himself but after much tsuris1 and tuml 2, managed to make contact with his arctic NGO, AGI3. I knew they’d be running spin big time on this baby and that odds were good they’d be looking to play me…but then I thought, what the hell, couldn’t hoit.
What follows is a worldwide exclusive, a transcript of the conversation I had with Santa’s personal representative and communications consultant, PR person Caspar Flack, his psychiatrist, Dr. Mel Chior, and his accountant-cum-aroma therapist, Balt Chazzer 4.
Dateline Montreal, December 20th 2007:
“First off,” Flack said, “you gotta promise never to refer to this here situation with Santa Claus as a nervous breakdown, okay? And, uh, we’re still off the record, right?”
“Not a snowball’s chance,” I said, scribbling gleefully.
“My God, what a fucking nightmare!” he shrieked. I heard a repeated smacking sound, suspiciously suggestive of someone banging the telephone receiver against his forehead, which was followed immediately by the click of a disengaged line.
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