Paul Szabo, the Liberal who chairs the House of Commons committee that has Karl Heinz Schreiber in front of it right now, is in the midst of his opening statement. First, he said the committee was disgusted that the police had failed to protect Schreiber’s “personal dignity” when Schreiber was taken from jail to his Ottawa home to review some documents.
Like all prisoners in jails, Schreiber’s belt had been removed and, as he approached his home in handcuffs, gravity would win out and Schreiber’s pants fell to his knees exposing his undergarments while our camera crews and others filmed the inevitable result.
Szabo took the police to task for allowing this to happen and to “others” — presumably our network and others — for exploiting it.
Then, Szabo launched into Schreiber’s lawyer Ed Greenspan who, after Schreiber’s first appearance, had labelled the event “a political circus.”
“This is not a political circus,” Szabo grandly pronounced. “This is the Parliament of Canada.”
Schreiber was suitably impressed by all this, for his first words were: “I am deeply impressed and touched by your words.”
And so we’re off ..
You can catch this live on CTV Newsnet, of course, or watch via Parliament’s Web cast.