Canadian foreign minister resigns after leaving secret documents with 'Hells Angel'

[Blue_Tires]

Source: The Telegraph

Maxime Bernier was forced out when it was revealed that he left classified documents at the home of Julie Couillard.

His former girlfriend handed over the papers, believed to be briefing notes for a Nato summit in Romania last month.

The security slip-up was compounded by the fact that Miss Couillard, 38, has had a string of lovers involved with the biker gang and its criminal activities.

Stephen Harper, the country's Conservative prime minister, said he had accepted the resignation of Mr Bernier, 45, following a series of gaffes and embarrassments.

Miss Couillard, a glamorous brunette, was once married to an outlaw biker and lived with another who died in a bloody turf war over drugs in the 1990s.



Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/canada/2039421/Canadian-foreign-minister-resigns-after-leaving-secret-documents-with-%27Hells-Angel%27.html

---

doesn't seem like THAT big a deal to me, as her association with bad choices and shit criminals seems to be well in the past...she IS a looker, though, and I can see how you can 'forget' something important after a visit to her place...

[applegrove]

1. Good riddance. Anyone in government who would associate with

someone like that...while in charge of a portfolio is very besotten and thus deranged. How could he think it would go without notice?

[angstlessk]

2. ba ba boom....I am an older woman and I say I am surprised he remembered his pants!

she is quite the face/body she is, that one!

[asthmaticeog]

3. "Miss Couillard, a glamorous brunette..." Um, yeah, I should say so.

She could make me forget important stuff, too. Holy crap.

[truthisfreedom]

15. Here's another pic of the two of them

[HeresyLives]

4. Classified NATO documents missing

for 5 weeks. Her bedroom is bugged, and she has connections to organized crime. I'd say this is fairly important in the scheme of things.

[Blue_Tires]

5. i wonder how he got involved with her in the first place,

despite her shadowy past...or maybe this was the plan all along?:think:

[HeresyLives]

6. He was seated next to her

at some dinner, and suddenly a 'romance'. Remarkably dumb on his part, since the RCMP warned all MPs a couple of years ago that they were all being targeted by organized crime.

[daleo]

7. The government won't say what might have been in those classified documents

But there could have been:
- sensitive information related to the war in Afghanistan.
- sensitive information related to NATO expansion.
- sensitive information related to missiles in Europe.
- etc.

Sensitive documents are supposed to be carefully tracked and documented. A five week "oops" is pretty bad.

[TrogL]

8. Information on delegates to a NATO meeting

among other things

[Ian David]

10. I'm going to guess it was a "Superbike" that The Hells Angels will use against The Outlaws.

[Ian David]

9. Finally, The Hells Angels have a secret edge against The Outlaws. Thanks, Canada! n/t

http://io9.com/376387/hello-i-will-do-the-flying-motorcycle-dance-for-you

[iverglas]

11. such deep thoughts ... and a Telegraph report to boot ...

First, it must be realized that Maxime Bernier is a buffoon of the first water. One of the stupider components of Harper's cabinet, and that's saying a bit. Two possible reasons for the average IQ of the ministers being approximately equal to that of a squash:

- Harper is a megalomaniac (he is) and isn't interested in surrounding himself with smarties
- Harper has so few caucus members from Quebec that he was already scraping the bottom of the caucus barrel when he came up with Bernier out of desperation to have a Québécois face at the table


The very fact that this woman spent the last week shopping her tale around to the media -- she wanted $50,000 from the Toronto Star -- kind of illustrates the problem. If her choice of what to wear to the Cabinet swearing-in ceremony wasn't someone's first clue.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/432073

As Couillard recalled, she wore that handkerchief-hemmed dress to last summer's swearing-in ceremony at his urging, and against her "feminine instinct." What's more, in retrospect, she realizes that he wanted, and basked in, the media attention her considerable cleavage attracted.

Aw. Poor chuck. She never wanted to saunter around with her boobs hanging out like that at all. She's

a poised and articulate woman, one who had every right "to re-establish her credibility and dignity," her ostensible reason for doing the half-hour interview.

Forgive me, but women who spent years sleeping with the scum of the earth that she was sleeping with never had any credibility or dignity.

I think one must have, and trade on, special talents to be moll to not one, not two, but three bigtime Hell's Angels, and I don't think they involve gourmet cooking or chess.

If only she hadn't sought payment for speaking to the press, as she had two weeks ago from the Star. It makes her seem like a woman who could be bought.

But then, she appears to be one who has always been well-kept, while her keepers have ended up in disgrace, in jail or in the grave.

Duh.


http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=1b582347-ef98-4785-8d48-d8f416c92f6e

Spy agency informed of Bernier affair, opposition alleges
Meagan Fitzpatrick , Canwest News Service
Published: 27 minutes ago

OTTAWA - Opposition members continued Wednesday to push for details about the events that led to Maxime Bernier's resignation on Monday and demanded to know whether the prime minister met with intelligence officials during the first week of May to discuss the former foreign affairs minister's conduct.

"We've been led to believe that more was happening behind the scenes than has been admitted by this government," Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh, his party's public safety critic, said in question period. "Can the public safety minister confirm that, between May 1 and 8 of this year, there was a meeting of CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) and the Prime Minister's Office to discuss the conduct of his foreign affairs minister?"

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day dismissed Dosanjh's repeated questions, saying it's not government policy to discuss meetings related to security.

... Dosanjh also demanded to know when exactly the documents were returned and to whom. However, House leader Peter Van Loan did not provide specifics, saying only that the documents were returned and that the Department of Foreign Affairs is conducting a review of any security matters related to the documents.

Opposition parties say that's not good enough and are calling for an external and independent probe to determine how the material was misplaced for weeks without Bernier, or anyone else, noticing. The New Democratic Party wants the RCMP called in and the Bloc Quebecois has made a motion at the Commons public security committee to hear testimony from Harper, Bernier, Couillard and security specialists.

The subtext here is that Harper's obsession with secrecy is kind of backfiring. He talks the transparency game, but his goverment is the most closed and secretive we've ever had. Well, except when it comes to leaving secret govt documents lying around the boudoirs of people of dubious repute.


Bernier's hometown folk have a notion he's been framed. It is to laugh.

I can't imagine Quebec in general would take kindly to his antics. Quebec suffered for years from biker gang violence -- Montreal was once the bank robbery capital of North America, and bystanders were killed and injured in the shootings and bombings among the rival gangs. They may be "French", but I'd like to think they're not amused by ministers hooking up with Hell's Angels' hangers on.


http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080527/bernier_quebec_080527/20080527?hub=CTVNewsAt11

There are currently 11 Tories from Quebec sitting in the House of Commons. The Tories are hoping to elect more the next time, and have run neck-and-neck with the Bloc Quebecois in recent polls. They've consistently led the Liberals.

But that could change, says Antonia Maioni, the director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.

... "He's sort of the pinup boy for the Conservative Party," she said.

"(Bernier) was someone with whom Quebecers could identify -- and say 'ah ha! that's the Conservative Party in Quebec.' He was the face of the Conservative party."

It's important to note, said political commentator and former Liberal MP Jean Lapierre, that the Tories' possible troubles in Quebec may not necessarily help the Liberals.

Whatever. As long as they get rid of the 11 Conservatives, that would be fine.

[Blue_Tires]

16. I wasn't going to say anything at first

but i did think her wardrobe choice for the swearing-in was a little more attention-grabbing than it should have been...

She was trying to sell the story? What a disgrace...But I guess she needs to cash in while she can now, because in light of her track record, from now on men will avoid her as if she is infected...She probably needs a name/face change, and a new country to get all this behind her...

[kitty1]

12. the media has greatly exagerated her boyfriend/husband's...

association with the Hell's Angels. According to Julie Couillard, neither one of them was directly affiliated with the Angels. They knew assoicates who had some kind of connections with the Angels, but they were not Hell's angels themselves or directly related to them according to the radio interview she gave.
Mind you, leaving classified documents around like that, is still a huge breach. I think they teach that as a big no on the first day of Nato training.
If the notes were based on Canadian covert activities, I'm sure the envelope contents were a big yawn, unless of course it disclosed future troop movements of our country and other alies in Afghanistan.

[Darth_Kitten]

13. Big yawn, why? Canadians are dying in Afghanistan, honey.

:eyes:

[iverglas]

14. where are you people getting your ideas???

According to Julie Couillard, neither one of them was directly affiliated with the Angels. They knew assoicates who had some kind of connections with the Angels, but they were not Hell's angels themselves or directly related to them according to the radio interview she gave.

What fantabulous bullshit. Has Ms. Couillard hired a PR person to patrol the net on her behalf?


http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/story.html?id=de14a181-2738-48b1-93d6-303b815a2dfe

I suggest reading the whole thing; I'll quote the maximum permissible. Maurice "Mom" Boucher ran the Hell's Angels in Quebec for many years, from both sides of the prison bars. He has the blood of dozens of people on his hands.

Who is Julie Couillard?
Paul Cherry, Montreal Gazette
Published: Thursday, May 08

In 1997, a man's love for Julie Couillard forced him to make a tough decision, choosing to marry her over his successful career as a Hells Angels drug dealer.

It was a decision Stéphane Sirois would later regret. But it also set off a chain of events that turned him into one of the best witnesses to testify against the Hells Angels in Quebec.

... When Sirois testified at a later trial in 2003 he elaborated more on what he told Couillard when they were married. He alleged that Boucher was so suspicious of Couillard he once had a contract out on her. Sirois said Couillard went around asking people tied to the Hells Angels if this was true.

Boucher's problem with Couillard apparently had to do with the fact she had previously dated Gilles Giguère, a close associate of Robert Savard, a notorious loanshark who operated in Montreal with Boucher's blessing.

Giguère was shot to death in April 1996 and his body was left in a ditch next to a road in L'Épiphanie. Although the slaying remains unsolved the Sûreté du Québec has long believed Giguère was killed by someone he knew.

In 1995, Giguère, Savard and lawyer Gilles Daudelin were arrested along with Couillard after the Wolverine Squad investigated alleged threats and the attempted extortion of a Montreal real estate agent.

In Montreal, you didn't have to be full patch to be "a Hell's Angel", except maybe in the eyes of the Hell's Angels. To say that someone like Giguère wasn't is to be disingenuous.


If the notes were based on Canadian covert activities, I'm sure the envelope contents were a big yawn, unless of course it disclosed future troop movements of our country and other alies in Afghanistan.

Yeah, we're just so boring, and we get up to such boring shit.

It has occurred to some people that secret documents in the possession of the Foreign Affairs Minister just might have (and apparently did have) something to do with things and people outside Canada.

Not that those people and things are more important than our own, just that the damage done to Canada by this pair of assholes could be more than might meet your eye.