Brian Mulroney businessman Karlheinz Schreiber (or to companies controlled by him), Brian Mulroney and former Newfoundland premier Frank Moores in exchange for three government contracts. These contracts involved the purchase of Airbus Industrie aircraft by Air Canada; the purchase of helicopters by the Canadian Coast Guard from Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm GmbH (MBB) in 1986; and the establishment of a manufacturing plant for Thyssen Light Armoured Vehicles (Bear Head Project) in the province of Nova Scotia, a project which Mulroney as prime minister had cancelled. This Letter of Request (LOR) "and its contents were to be kept confidential" but the letter was leaked to the
Brian Mulroney failure of Meech, Bouchard convinced several other Tories to break with the party and join him to form the Bloc Québécois, a pro-sovereigntist (i.e. "independentist") party. Years later, Mulroney said that his biggest error as Prime Minister had been trusting his former university friend; indeed, he and Bouchard have not spoken to each other in over two decades. Mulroney entered 1993 facing a statutory general election (under Canadian law, federal governments can have a maximum duration of five years, but they often have lesser duration as they must enjoy the confidence of the House of Commons in order to continue