The Airbus Affair Was a Canadian and German Scandal

Short Essay 1

POLS 3340 DE

University of Guelph

Hearthan Mahenthiran

Student ID: 0794770

June 12, 2016

The Airbus affair was a Canadian and German scandal that lasted for fifteen years, Karlheinz Schreiber and Brian Mulroney where at the center of this scandal. Karlheinz Schreiber and Brian Mulroney had a very unique relationship with each other. The first time Karlheinz and Brian meet was in 1976 in February, when Karlheinz was impressed by Brian’s leadership convention and he contributed to his campaign. What brought the two men together was the fact that Karlheinz Schreiber needed someone powerful to support his campaign. He needed someone that could help him make money and could influence how the Canadian government conducted business with international business. He chose to support Brian Mulroney who was then elected as the Prime Minster of Canada. Karlheinz Schreiber started to influence Brian Mulroney and convinced him to buy helicopters from German aircraft manufacturers MBB. He also convinced him to fire all Air Canada board of directors and hire new ones that would buy thirty-four airplanes from Airbus instead of Boeing because Karlheinz made a deal with Airbus. The deal Karlheinz made with Airbus allowed him to get up to three percent of every airplane sold to Canada. What brought Brian Mulroney together with Karlheinz Schreiber was, that fact Karlheinz contributed money towards his campaign. Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz were also brought together due to the tax- free money that they would make as a result of joining forces. A couple of things that Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber had in common where that they were both businessmen. They both knew what would happened if there deal with the planes went through. The Canadian economy would decrease because of jobs being lost to foreign countries to build the planes. They were aware that what they were doing was not ethical. Another thing that brought them together was that they were both very selfish people. They were going trying to profit more money for them selves and ignore the affects their deal would have on the Canadian government or the economy. What they gained from there relationship was money and defames their names. The commission that they both were making because of the deal was extremely unethical.  The fact that they did not have a written contract or any evidence at all that they were making commission only proves that they were aware that what they were doing was unethical and they tried to cover it up. For the former prime minster Brian Mulroney, accepting the money was unethical but it was also a demonstration of the amount of corruption that there was and still is in parliament. It is also a good example of how business’s around the world influences politicians. Their relationship also caused their reputations to be severely damaged. Once people began to investigate what they were doing, local and national news stations mentioned their names and story and their reputations went down the drain. The Germans charged Karlheinz Schreiber with tax evasion and he was sentenced to eight years in prison. Brian Mulroney was to appear before the ethics committee. There were some questions that remained unanswered about the airbus affair. Globe and the mail had five questions they thought that should be answered which were not.  The first one being: Did Brian Mulroney as Prime Minster, help Karlheinz Schreiber in his business dealings? The second question, did Mulroney make a deal for payments from Schreiber when he was still prime minister? If so, was that