'Tendentious and sensationalist'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 3:24 PM - 32 Comments

Maxime Bernier responds to today’s Le Devoir report.

The journalist grounds his assertion not on the nature of the information itself – which he has not seen – but on the fact that the word “Secret” is marked on sections of the documents, which was obviously already known; and on the fact that paragraphs were taken out by civil servants before he obtained the document, which was totally predictable since we’re talking about secret documents. The civil servants simply deemed it prudent to keep the content of these sections secret, even if releasing it would not cause any significant injury to national interest.

Oops, redux

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 11:55 AM - 10 Comments

Canadian Press explains Le Devoir’s scoop for we anglophones.

The misplaced documents that got Maxime Bernier booted from cabinet last year contained a treasure trove of sensitive information, according to a newspaper report today. Details of the documents were revealed in a report by Montreal’s Le Devoir newspaper titled: “A mine of crucial information for the enemy”…

The newspaper says it received heavily redacted copies of the material through the Access to Information Act. Still, in the parts that weren’t blacked out, the newspaper says the documents contain information about — among other things — missile-defence systems, NATO’s expansion to the Balkans, Afghan prisoners, arms control in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the presence of al-Qaeda in Pakistan.

The Commons: And then, suddenly, an answer

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 6:27 PM - 23 Comments

The Scene. It was not otherwise a particularly remarkable day.

The Liberals persisted in asking the government to account for the current shortage of medical isotopes. The government insisted on doing no such thing. Jack Layton pouted about not receiving an invitation to the Prime Minister’s afternoon tea with Michael Ignatieff the other day. The Prime Minister jabbed his finger and waved his arms and declared the NDP an annoyance. John Baird scorned Mr. Layton with one answer and congratulated him on the birth of his granddaughter—Beatrice Dora Campbell, eight pounds and one ounce, born 12:03am Wednesday morning to Jack’s daughter Sarah—with the next.

Not even the early appearance of Irwin Cotler, the former justice minister rising immediately after Michael Ignatieff had dispensed with his three questions, seemed a cause for much concern. With the House breaking tomorrow for the summer, it appeared the Liberals were merely giving the venerable old lawyer a ceremonial opportunity to register a couple long-held grievances.

He asked first about Omar Khadr. Deepak Obhrai, the foreign affairs minister’s parliamentary secretary, rose with the perfunctory answer.

Mr. Cotler moved to the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik, the Canadian still bunking at our embassy in Sudan, awaiting an answer to the cruel riddle of his situation. “Mr. Speaker, Abousfian Abdelrazik is another abandoned Canadian citizen. In spite of the Federal Court’s severe rebuke, this government continues to violate Mr. Abdelrazik’s rights by refusing to bring him home,” Mr. Cotler posited. “The government has had two weeks to read a judgment that is unequivocal in its findings of fact and conclusions of law. Every day it waits is a continued violation of Mr. Abdelrazik’s rights. Does the government plan on appealing the court’s decision while delaying justice at Mr. Abdelrazik’s expense, or will it heed the court’s order and immediately return Mr. Abdelrazik home to Canada?”

It was here that something truly astonishing happened. Continue…

The Commons: The interrogation of Lisa Raitt

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 6:12 PM - 18 Comments

The Scene. The afternoon’s session began with the rare seven-part question.

“Mr. Speaker,” said Liberal David McGuinty, “I have several questions for the Prime Minister.”

Did the documents, he wondered, belong personally to the Natural Resources Minister? When did she realize they were missing? Did she inform her deputy minister? If so, when? What secret information did they contain? What commercial information may have been revealed? And, finally, would the government be taking action against the television network that was, previously and inadvertently, in possession of said documents?

Not surprisingly, the Prime Minister chose to answer none of these queries.

“Mr. Speaker,” he said, “as I said yesterday, the minister had reasonable expectations that these documents would be kept secret. The minister has acted accordingly, and I support the minister in her actions.”

Even less surprisingly, Mr. McGuinty did not then decide to cease with his examination. “Mr. Speaker, secret documents are those that ‘could reasonably be expected to cause serious injury to the national interest,’” he posited. “We are told these documents contain information on AECL’s financial status, indebtedness, contractual undertakings, obligations, lawsuits and details surrounding its bid for the supply of nuclear power in Ontario. They also deal with the critical issue of medical isotopes for medical testing. Can the Prime Minister explain how the release of this information could not be reasonably expected to cause serious injury to the national interest?”

The Prime Minister returned to his previous point. Then he revived his new favourite trick.

“Let me quote for the member opposite the editorial today in the Toronto Star which says that the minister offered her resignation,” he said. “The Prime Minister rightly refused to accept it. It is time for the opposition to move on to more substantive issues.”

The Conservatives stood to cheer the infinite wisdom of the same editorial board that endorsed Stephane Dion last fall. Continue…

Great moments in discretion

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 1:24 PM - 56 Comments

Randomly selected quotes from Question Period on May 8, 2008.

Maxime Bernier. “Mr. Speaker, I never thought that I would be the victim of such a low, meanspirited attack by an opposition party. This is my private life people are talking about.”

Peter Van Loan. “Mr. Speaker, I am sure you would agree that if the House of Commons lowered itself to spending its days inquiring into the private lives of the members, our country would be a much sadder place.”

Peter Van Loan. “Mr. Speaker, it was Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau who said, ‘The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.’ The deputy leader of the Liberal Party is clearly no Pierre Trudeau.”

Peter Van Loan. “Mr. Speaker, it is quite clear that these are politically motivated, personal attacks on someone’s private life, which have no place in the House of Commons.”

Continue…

Mitchel Raphael on Harper’s hairstylist

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 3:55 PM - 7 Comments

The anti-Julie Couillard

At this year’s Politics & the Pen gala, the Writers’ Trust of Canada awarded the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing to James Orbinski for An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century. Last year, Maxime Bernier arrived at the event with Julie Couillard in a tight gold dress. Times have changed. This year Bernier was spotted walking in with someone a little less flamboyant: fellow Tory MP Ted Menzies, wearing a bow tie and cummerbund in his family’s tartan. One MP quipped that Couillard really should have been invited, noting that she did, in fact, write a book. At this glitzy A-list event filled with writers and politicians, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, Transport Minister John Baird, and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty all spent time greeting the glamorous Stefania Capovilla, who was attending her first Politics & the Pen. Capovilla knows these politicians’ true colours: she’s their hairstylist. She coifs a virtual who’s who list of Ottawa’s political elite thanks to PMO staffer Aaron Campbell, who first visited her while the Conservatives were in opposition and then started recommending her to others. She even cuts Stephen Harper’s hair. The gala’s entertainment was provided by comedian Brent Butt from Corner Gas, who was seated next to Laureen Harper. Butt doesn’t understand why, having had two sitting PMs on the show, he still has to pay taxes. During his routine, the lights kept going on and off. The mystery was solved when it turned out that Mrs. Harper’s RCMP guard was leaning on the light switch in the Fairmont Château Laurier ballroom. Continue…

The Commons: A cold and miserable day

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 4:43 PM - 44 Comments

The Prime Minister arrived promptly at 9:30am. Stepping out of the car, he waved to the reporters assembled 70 metres away and then strode through the back door of Rideau Hall. His staff followed behind.

Half a dozen news trucks idled in the Governor-General’s driveway. A dozen television cameras lined up by the fountain, aimed at her front door. Madame Jean’s staff had set out coffee and, though lukewarm, it eventually became necessary.

Thus, the wait began. Two and a half hours of chilly anticipation.

***

So how did we get here? The answer depends on your perspective. Continue…

Sex sells? Not so much.

By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 11:48 AM - 10 Comments

What’s that German word that everyone uses these days? The one where someone takes delight in the suffering of another? Shadeandfruit? Shatnerfeud? [ed's note: It's 'schadenfreude', you idiot.]

Whatever it is, Maxime Bernier must be swimming in the stuff this a.m., after early sales of his former lover Julie Couillard’s tell-all My Story were tallied. Long story short: they’re terrible. According to La Presse, which reported the numbers with its own dose of schaden-whatever, Julie’s little mash note has more or less tanked.

Continue…

Julie Couillard's Sex Tips for Girls

By Anne Kingston - Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 5:06 PM - 0 Comments

Now that Maxime Bernier’s former girlfriend’s memoir has been wrung dry for its scant political dirt, let’s put it where it belongs: in the self-help section. That’s because My Story is a brilliant, if unwitting, reverse dating manual, the ultimate how-not-to book. With unfailing instinct, Julie Couillard hooks up with a parade of no-good guys who leave her heartbroken or just plain broke.

The top ten lessons to be gleaned from her woe-begotten travails in the dating trenches:

1. If you don’t want to meet bikers, don’t hang out in biker bars.

2. If your knight-in-shining armor can help you break into your apartment when you’ve locked yourself out with “tools” he carries around in the back of his truck (as did her former boyfriend Giles Giguère, the “love of her life”) and he’s not a locksmith, odds are he travels in unsavoury circles.

3. Don’t lend money to men with whom you’re involved (especially if you’re being asked to fork over cash to buy your own $12,000 wedding ring).

4. A fairy-tale wedding like the one Couillard staged with her ex-husband, the ex-biker and ex-drug dealer Stéphane Sirois which featured the same Rolls Royce rented by Céline Dion and René Angélil never ensures a happily-ever-after ending.

5. Don’t become involved with men who are involved with other women: that karma bites big time. Continue…

Maclean’s Interview: Julie Couillard

By Kenneth Whyte - Thursday, October 9, 2008 at 12:00 AM - 3 Comments

Q: I’m going to start at the beginning of your relationship with Mr. Bernier, and that very first meeting that you two had.

A: Well, it was actually my real estate broker that invited me to a cinq-à-sept. I had mentioned to him a couple of days prior that the Conservative party had approached me to maybe present myself as an MP, which really took me by surprise. But to tell you that I ever took this proposition seriously, no. Still, I was curious about it, and my broker says, we’re all going for supper afterwards and, by the way, a minister is going to be there, and maybe you’d like to come and pick his brains, basically, about politics and everything to do with becoming an MP. So I said yeah. He mentioned to me it was the ministre de l’industrie—industry minister—Maxime Bernier. As a joke, my broker said, “He’s pretty cute, and he’s single, so who knows?” That’s how we first met.

Q: In the course of the evening, Mr. Bernier got a bit forward with you.

A: Well, actually, that was at the beginning of the evening. We had just sat down, and he leaned forward and gave me a little peck on the cheek. And some people will say, “How come you got shocked by that? Because next time you saw him you guys ended up being intimate on your first official date.” It’s not the same as if you meet a guy for the first time, you hit it off well, and then it’s officially a date. First of all, my brokers were there. It was a business meeting. I mean, I was in a suit. That’s why it was totally out of place.

Continue…

Megapundit: Defending the indefensible—with a smile

By selley - Thursday, October 2, 2008 at 2:26 PM - 9 Comments

Must-reads: James Travers in Nova Scotia; Christie Blatchford on Julie Couillard; Jeffrey Simpson on the debate.

What debate were you watching?
This much we all agree on: Elizabeth May didn’t win.

The Globe and Mail‘s Jeffrey Simpson calls last night’s leaders’ debate for Gilles Duceppe—and really, how could you not? The Bloc Québécois leader “has never made a decision in government to defend, and never will, [so] he could keep complaining, criticizing and implying, which he does with exceptional cleverness,” that Stephen Harper’s Ottawa, like all the Ottawas that preceded it, is out to screw Quebeckers. If anyone changed his or her mind last night, Simpson predicts, it was probably in the Bloc’s favour—which is to Harper’s considerable disadvantage. Stéphane Dion didn’t wow, Simpson adds, but had at least one very good moment when he attacked Harper for what Simpson calls “his excessively partisan governing style.”

The Calgary Herald‘s Don Martin “fearlessly declare[s] there was no runaway winner or obvious loser.” Harper didn’t douse the flames of arts funding and youth justice, and probably didn’t win over many “sovereigntist fence-sitters” unsure of how a majority government would treat Quebec’s interests, but Martin says his performance was “calm and surprisingly laidback,” and that he often “seemed bemused by the group gang-up” instead of annoyed. (His bemusedness seemed somewhat forced to us, but was no doubt a good strategy). As for Dion, Martin suggests he stop raising his hand—We disagree! Take the high road!—and “dive into the debate” tonight.

Continue…

A liveblog review of My Story, by Julie Couillard

By Charlie Gillis - Thursday, October 2, 2008 at 12:29 PM - 33 Comments

Couillard’s 317-page account of her life and ill-fated affair with Maxime Bernier, landed today on newsroom desks across the country (M&S, $29.99). The advance billing—primed by its author in select media interviews—suggests the book could cause a stir on the campaign trail.

Maclean’s national affairs correspondent Charlie Gillis is reading it, and will share observations as he goes.

(For Day 2, please scroll down)

Day 1

Noon — First impressions: it looks and feels as rushed as it is. After initially setting a release date of Oct. 14, the day of the election, Couillard and her publishers bumped up first to Oct. 6, then to tomorrow. The page stock feels cheap (think foolscap from grade school), but there are 16-pages of b&w photos in the middle. Predictably, Julie looks great in a lot of them.

She sets quite a tone in the dedication:

“… to women who, like me, have had their reputations and lives destroyed by the wagging tongues of men in power.”

Strap on your seatbelt, Max. I have a feeling this is going to get rough.

(Note to readers: patience appreciated; I can only type so fast. As ever, responses, rejoinders and criticism welcome).

12:20 p.m. — Intro. Don’t usually read ‘em, but this one’s off to a good start, with a rail at a “scandal-obsessed media” that “delighted in perpetrating the worst drivel and falsehoods imaginable…” Hey, wait a minute, that’s me you’re talking about.

It’s essentially a rant about how miserable the media made her and her family during l’affaire Couillard-Bernier. I don’t doubt that. But I don’t think she was made out to be the “monster” she claims.

12:30 p.m. — Chapter 1, “Mixed Roots.” Her first memory is the day her dog died. Yikes, I hope this gets cheerier…

Actually, the dog thing is part of a broader self-portrait a sort of Snow White figure. Loves animals, very gentle, full of love, small woodland creatures gather around her feet etc. Did her editor (ghostwriter?) explain the concept of hyperbole to her?

Early childhood in Ville-Émard, blue-collar hood on the southwest Island, French-Scot-Irish background; parents married at 18 because they were pregnant with her sister.

First brush with fame: won “cutest baby contest” held by a local TV station. Moved to the ‘burbs north of Montreal when she was four.

12:45 p.m. — Chapter 2, “Life in Lorraine.” Her mother’s warning not to marry “the first man you meet” comes home. Iydillic childhood is disrupted when her mother Diane finds a lipstick-stained cigarette butt in the car (neither parents smoked).

So her father, Marcel, was cheating. He was a “profoundly dysfunctional” man who made promises he didn’t keep. Her parents began squabbling, and she developed a defence mechanism, falling asleep as soon as they started. The marriage wasn’t violent, only loveless. You can see where this is heading:

” … since I had known nothing else, it was hard for me to put a name to the vague unease that I felt—a sort of nostalgic longing for something that had never existed in world, that is, a close-knit family that would gather together at mealtimes, playfully tease one another, talk about the little things …”

1:05 p.m. — Chapter 3 (of 47; don’t say we aren’t dedicated here at Maclean’s), “Money Problems”

I should note that the editors have added little pull-quotes to stand as subtitles for every chapter. This one is “Little girls need to love their fathers,” which typifies the banality of a lot of her observations. Still, the tone of the early-years stuff is pretty heartfelt, at least to my ear.

By now, the family numbers five: mum, dad, Julie, her sister Johanne and her little brother Patrick. Her father, who had been a lithographer with the Montreal Gazette newspaper, decides he’s going to be a building contractor, a decision that casts the family into financial instability. He’s too disorganized and undisciplined, says Julie.

Another brief period of idyll after they move into a house her father has built in Lorraine. But her dad is driven into bankruptcy penury after a bad transaction with an electrician. Diane is forced to work nights as waitress. At 10, she says, she “gained a vague understanding of the value of money—or at least the hardships that can result from lack of it.”

In short, she has dad issues and money issues, which I feel like I might have predicted. Continue…

Julie Couillard—a photo album

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 4:29 PM - 0 Comments

Continue…

BTC: Coincidentally

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 11:01 PM - 0 Comments

This business of a cabinet shuffle, by the way, has nothing to do with taking attention away from this—the reemergence of a certain former foreign affairs ministers. Don’t even think it.

Investigation? Did I say investigation?

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, June 20, 2008 at 6:48 PM - 0 Comments

A top RCMP official suggested yesterday the force might be conducting an investigation involving former Foreign Affairs minister Maxime Bernier’s ex-girlfriend, Julie Couillard.

Under questioning by New Democratic Party MP Thomas Mulcair, assistant RCMP commissioner Raf Souccar let slip that an inquiry might be under way.

Asked by Mulcair whether he took notes while discussing the Bernier/Couillard affair with colleagues, Souccar said yes, but added not all of them could be shared with the committee.

“What would be the types of things that you would not share with us and why?” Mulcair asked.

“At this point, anything specific to the investigation, I would not be willing to share with you,” Souccar replied. But he appeared to back away from his comment when he was then asked: “What investigation?”

After the hearing, Souccar refused to confirm there is an investigation, when it started or what is being investigated. “I’m not willing to confirm or deny whether or not we are conducting an investigation, have conducted or will be conducting an investigation,” he said.

Oh thank goodness

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, June 20, 2008 at 6:43 PM - 0 Comments

Julie Couillard’s autobiography coming in the fall

The woman whose revelations toppled foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier will tell her life’s story in an autobiography to be published this fall.

Julie Couillard’s book will recount a unique life from her modest beginnings in a working-class neighbourhood of Montreal to her spectacular emergence on the national scene last May, her Canadian publisher McClelland and Stewart said in a new release Friday.

Quebecor and Couillard: No comment

By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 9:50 AM - 0 Comments

I wrote a piece for the magazine about the interesting relationship between Julie Couillard and media giant Quebecor. Here it is.

The Commons: Those in mud houses

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, June 16, 2008 at 6:03 PM - 0 Comments

The government has plenty of promises, if few explanations, for the mess in Afghanistan

The Scene. Stéphane Dion—not to mention Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae and party whip Karen Redman—were not to be seen when Question Period began this day, the last Monday of this Parliamentary season. And perhaps there was some method in keeping him away.

With just a week left to tarnish this government’s reputation—or, rather, a week left to do so on business hours—the Liberals seem intent on leaving no alleged wrong unreferenced. Indeed, today offered a veritable buffet of the unappetizing—from Julie Couillard’s ambitious seductions to the Chuck Cadman tape to the in-and-out affair, NAFTAgate and the legal aspirations of Vic Toews.

So exhaustive and unrelenting was the opposition that Peter Van Loan, that solid champion of the public trust, was heard crying out for something more substantive. And if Mr. Dion is to announce this week the defining policy of his leadership—a boldly wistful plan that asks voters to put aside the individual needs of now for the sake of meeting a greater common good at some point in the unknown future—it is perhaps best at the moment to put some distance between him and this tawdry business of democracy.

Not, of course, that there weren’t legitimate issues to discuss this day. On the contrary. Just in time for summer, there are entirely new and serious questions to be asked about the country’s mission in Afghanistan. Continue…

Why do I feel like I've posted this before?

By kadyomalley - Monday, June 16, 2008 at 5:38 PM - 0 Comments

I swear, before this minority parliament came into being, I went years without ever having to look up the process for subpoenaing witnesses for any reason other than to feed my own geeky amusement. Now it seems to come up every few months, and not in a purely theoretical sense, either:

Anyway, here’s the Standing Order that gives committees the power to “send for persons, papers and records”:
Continue…

" … Parliamentarians should have the grace to let justice calmly and effectively follow its course."

By kadyomalley - Monday, June 16, 2008 at 4:05 PM - 0 Comments

Letter from Jean-C. Hébert, counsel to Julie Couillard, to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security (emphasis added):

Dear Mr. Préfontaine:

I regret to inform you that Ms. Julie Couillard chooses to decline the invitation to appear before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on June 18, 2008, for one hour and fifteen minutes. My client chooses to decline this invitation for a number of reasons.

*Background
Continue…

Bernier Affair: The Lady Vanishes (or, at the very least, fails to materialize)

By kadyomalley - Monday, June 16, 2008 at 3:20 PM - 0 Comments

Well, well, well: Following in the footsteps of certain former prime ministers, Ms. Couillard has reportedly, through her lawyer, declined an invitation to testify before the Public Safety committee later this week. Or so the rumour goes …
Continue…

ITQ Committee Roundup – It's not over til the femme fatale testifies …

By kadyomalley - Monday, June 16, 2008 at 2:04 PM - 0 Comments

… which is why ITQ will be hanging around in the hallway outside the Public Safety committee room, as its members meet behind closed doors later this afternoon to discuss the latest twists and turns in their ongoing investigation into the Bernier/Couillard Affair. During the first day of hearings last week, two senior RCMP officials – Bob Paulson and Raf Souccar -refused to tell the committee whether or not the Mounties had informed the Privy Council Office- that the then-Foreign Affairs Minister’s special friend was, as they say, “known to police.”
Continue…

The Commons: Inside the Bernier hearings

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 3:08 PM - 0 Comments

With little else better to do between 3:30 and 5:30 this afternoon, The Commons is going to kill a couple of hours at Day One of what we’ll wildly tout as the Bernier hearings. Appearing first is Michael Juneau-Katsuya, the oft-quoted former CSIS agent. The last hour and 15 minutes will be split between a pair of RCMP commissioners.

Should be terribly enlightened and chock full of helpful innuendo and leading questions.

Watch this space. The fun shall commence shortly.

3:34 PM
For those of you keeping score at home, we’ve got Bonnie Brown, Sue Barnes, Ujjal Dosanjh and Marlene Jennings for the Liberals; Dave MacKenzie, Gord Brown, Rick Norlock and Colin Mayes for the government, Serge Menard for the Bloc; Penny Priddy for the NDP. And one member from the BQ whose name escapes. Surely their mother watching at home are thrilled.

3:43 PM
Michel Juneau-Katsuya opens with his assertion that this is not at all a matter of Mr. Bernier’s private life.

3:45 PM
Unexpected reference to J. Edgar Hoover.

Continue…

BTC: This space for sale

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, June 8, 2008 at 10:28 PM - 0 Comments

Is there anyone left who would dispute that in the matter of Harper v. the Parliamentary Press Gallery, the Prime Minister has thoroughly trounced the fourth estate? For all the bluster and angst, for all the projections of inevitable karmic comeuppance at the hands of aggrieved and all-powerful scribes, can the Conservatives not now claim complete and total victory in the battle to control who and how this government is defined?

For sure, these past two weeks have included some of the Harper administration’s least flattering moments. Never minding even the dramatic unravelling of Maxime Bernier’s political career, this government has struggled mightily to maintain its equilibrium. With the Prime Minister in Europe, desperate for good news, the PMO wrongly (or at least prematurely) announced the Italians willing to do more in Afghanistan. With the Bernier affair still making news upon Stephen Harper’s return, James Moore was then dispatched, bizarrely, to reintroduce the infamous Cadman tape—an attempt to discredit the opposition that was counter-productive at worst, silly at best.

Now, with revelations of Julie Couillard’s personal life still emerging every couple of days, a confidence vote to come Monday and law enforcement authorities due to testify publicly about what they knew and when about Bernier’s companion, the Harper government should be staggering toward the summer recess.

And yet. If this administration has lost control of itself, it has not lost control of the message. Continue…