Foreign Interests Decided Canada's Prime Minister

Karlheinz Schreiber said Tuesday for the first time that foreign interests and money were involved in the campaign to unseat Tory leader Joe Clark at the 1983 Progressive Conservative convention.

Mr. Schreiber told the House of Commons ethics committee that the money he used to help arrange and pay for jets that transported anti-Clark delegates from Quebec to the convention in Winnipeg came from himself; the late Franz Josef Strauss, the chairman of Airbus Industrie; and probably from Mr. Strauss's political party, the Christian Social Union.

At that historic convention, Mr. Clark did not receive the support he was looking for in a leadership review. He then called a leadership race, which was won by Brian Mulroney.

“The money came from myself, and from the Strauss family, and probably from the [Christian] Social Union,” said Mr. Schreiber, adding the amount he contributed was about $25,000.