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 visibly angry Mulroney called this "an avowal of failure" and "a confession of non-leadership." The exchange led most papers the next day, with most of them paraphrasing Mulroney's counterattack as "You had an option, sir—you could have said 'no.'" Many observers believe that at this point, Mulroney assured himself of becoming prime minister. On September 4, Mulroney and the Tories won the largest majority government in Canadian history. They took 211 seats, three more than their previous record in 1958. The Liberals won only 40 seats, which, at the time was their worst performance ever and the worst defeat for