My friend Stevie Cameron has had a rough few years. As befits one of this country's finest investigative reporters, she went after big game -- stories like possible corruption in the Airbus and Eurocopter deals.

The Airbus/Eurocopter saga got her in some difficulty. Those difficulties became very newsworthy to The Globe and Mail -- much more so than the fact that German middleman Karlheinz Schreiber had given $300,000 in cash in 1993 to then-former prime minister Brian Mulroney for consulting on a pasta business.

On Saturday, the Globe published its latest article on the topic, which dealt with some testimony by Fraser Fiegenwald, a former RCMP staff sargeant.

There wasn't much of Cameron's side in the story.

Cameron has made a full response on her blog (she had previously addressed the issue of her relationship with the RCMP on her website).

Here's an excerpt from the blog posting:

My role in the RCMP investigation was small. My true role was as a journalist trying to get at this huge and dangerous story. I have always said I have been a sideshow in this affair. The real story is the failure to charge, try and convict the Canadians who received millions of dollars on the contracts Schreiber arranged in Canada. The real story is how Schreiber manages to stay in Canada despite the charges against him in Germany and Canada’s effort to extradite him. We look like fools.

We should look at other similar cases. Look at the Allan Eagleson story, for example – another one I worked on for Maclean’s and for the Globe and Mail. Eagleson’s powerful friends prevented any serious examination of his fraudulent conduct in the hockey world for decades and only after he was charged by courts in the United States did Canadian police begin to take action. They were years behind the Americans; in fact, only one RCMP officer worked on the case for most of the time. It was the Americans who seized Eagleson’s property in Florida and New York and even succeeded in freezing assets in London. Finally, in a plea bargain in both Canadian and U.S. courts, Eagleson pled guilty in both countries and went to jail in Canada for a few months.

Then there are the charges against Conrad Black in the United States. Again, the Americans were well ahead of the Canadians; in fact, the RCMP has said here that officers looked at the case against him for a few weeks and decided there was no reason to proceed. Oh, really?

What is wrong with the RCMP? What is wrong with our justice system? What is wrong with our journalism? Why have so few news outlets gone after these stories? Are we living in a gulag?

There’s something else to think about. The preliminary hearing on the charges against Eurocopter was in an open court in Ottawa, although there was, until last week’s judicial decision to dismiss the case, a ban on publication. I asked many reporters in Ottawa if they were following the hearing or, at the very least, getting the transcripts of the testimony. They were not. Yet this must be one of the richest sources of information about what the Mounties did find out about Mr. Schreiber’s payments to Canadians. Why haven’t we seen news reports about these?

Making me the focus of so much vitriol is the cheap and easy way out. I will say again that The Last Amigo is the only place you will find the full story and I am proud to have written it.

I would do it all over again.