Brian Mulroney is known to be the 18th prime minister of the Republic of Canada, along with being the leader of the progressive conservative party in Canada (Theakston & Vries, 2012). When in office as the prime minister, his tenure was marked by the introduction of several economic reforms. The latter include free trade agreement that was between Canada and the U.S, taxation on goods and services, as well as the rejection of the constitutional reforms to include Charlottetown and the Meech Accord (Theakston & Vries, 2012). Before engaging himself in the line of politics, Mulroney was a lawyer as well as a prominent business man.
In his line of business, Mulroney was faced with the airbus affair or the Schreiber affair. At this juncture, Brian settled a lawsuit that he had earlier on brought against the Canadian government in the year 1995. The settling of the affair was in 1997 when Mulroney received a reimbursement of $ 2.1 million that he incurred in the legal and the public relation costs, along with an apology. The main theme of this case under the airbus affair was that of bribery, such that Mulroney was accused of getting bribes that related to the contracts by the government (Theakston & Vries, 2012). In this regard, the government claimed that the charges were not able to be substantiated. Besides that, the principal investigator in this case, got a retirement a year later and for this reason, the government decided to drop the entire case.
However, there existed a key fact that was never known by anyone. In this case, the latter stated fact had not been part of the sworn testimony whereby Mulroney was denied having attended significant meetings with business associates, or performing any business dealings whatsoever. After some time, Mulroney brought into the light the fact that he had personally received cash payments that came from his business associate by the name Karlheinz Schreiber. The latter was a businessman in Canada, who gave payments to a broker for various companies to include Airbus.
Moreover, the transactions between Schreiber and Mulroney were carried out in three secretive meetings, at the Montreal Hotel in the city of New York. The dealings were done in brown paper bags of $ 1000 that either totaled at $225, 000 according to Mulroney or $300,000 according to Schreiber (Miller, Vandome & Mc Brewster, 2009). The payments were honored over a period of 18 months, at the start of 1993, an era whereby Mulroney had stepped down from being a prime minister but was still holding office as a member of parliament (Theakston & Vries, 2012). After sometime, that is, in the year 2007, Mulroney claimed that he had stored the cash paid in New York in a safe deposit box that was in New York, thus meaning that he had not carried the amount illegally across the US – Canadian border (Cashore, 2010). On reaching Montreal, Mulroney deposited the cash in a safe. However, a cash payment had not been considered as income for the purposes of taxation.
On the other hand, Schreiber had $ 20 million at his disposal, and this originated from Airbus, as payment for its secret commission. In this regard, the CBS television channel reported that, all the money that was paid to Mulroney came from a Swiss bank under Frankfurt, as the account code-named (Cashore, 2010). The same account was used by Schreiber when making payments for the Airbus commission. Five years down the line after Schreiber had made his payments, the transactioneering parties met again in Zurich, at Hotel Savoy, in Switzerland. At this juncture, Schreiber claimed that Mulroney was making efforts to extract a promise that would conceal the payment made by Schreiber. Mulroney ended up denying such allegations, along with denying the total payments of $300, 000. In this case, the questions that have remained unanswered are that of credibility and truthfulness between Schreiber and Mulroney. In conclusion, the Airbus affair involved Mulroney, who was a government official by then, and Schreiber, a business associate.
References
Cashore, H. (2010). The truth shows up: A reporter's fifteen-year odyssey tracking down
The truth about Mulroney, Schreiber and the airbus scandal. Toronto: Key Porter Books
Miller, F. P., Vandome, A. F., & McBrewster, J. (2009). Airbus: Airbus affair,
International Lease Finance Corporation, Electronic Centralised Aircraft Monitor
, Airbus A400M, Airbus A320 family, Airbus A300, Airbus A380, Airbus A330. Mauritius
: Alphascript Publishing.
Theakston, K., & Vries, J. . (2012). Former leaders in modern democracies: Political sunsets
. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
