What Opposition MPs Gossip About Over Their Crib Games

Maxime Bernier's ex-girlfriend his own business

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier's ex-girlfriend may have been born to be wild, but the reaction of Opposition MPs to recent revelations about her suggest that they've spent the better part of their lives walking on the mild side.

It's recently hit the news media that Julie Couillard, a woman formerly so close to Bernier that he described her as his spouse, had previously been involved with some members of the Hells Angels biker club -- the very same organization likely responsible for recent threats against Diane Finley.

At one point, Couillard was even reputed to be a target of Maurice "Mom" Boucher. "At one point the suspicions were so high that there was a contract on her … She was going to get it. She came close to getting it," testified Stephane Sirois, who turned informant in 2003.

Couillard accompanied Bernier to Rideau Hall for his swearing-in as Foreign Affairs minister, and accompanied him on several trips abroad.

Unsurprisingly, Opposition MPs have demonstrated little shame in trying to transform the revelation into a soap-opera-plot-cum-political scandal.

"Mr. Bernier needs to explain because we want to know if there were any matter of national security involved," Liberal leader Stephane Dion announced.

"They are everyone's business and we will raise them in this House," Ignatieff added.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper disagrees. "I hear that one of my cabinet ministers has an ex-girlfriend," Harper quipped. "It's none of my business, none of Mr Duceppe's business, none of Mr Dion's business. Mr Duceppe and Mr Dion are quite a group of gossipy old busybodies."

And Harper's precisely right. Bernier's romantic liaisons are nobody's business but his own. And to suggest that a woman who was targeted for assassination by Maurice Boucher is a national security risk is more than a little ludicrous. If anything, the prospect that a villain like Boucher considered her threatening enough to want her dead suggests the exact opposite.

To put Bernier on trial for Crouillard's previous taste in men -- something he didn't even know about until the media brought it up -- is a ridiculous farce.

Unfortunately, the Opposition has shown a taste for ridiculous farce of late.

From the moment she arrived in Ottawa, Couillard has been fodder for ridiculous farce. Some may recall her name on the tongues of Parliament Hill gossips once before, when she showed up to Bernier's swearing-in ceremony wearing a scandalously revealing outfit.

If anything, Canadians should probably be wondering why Bernier and Couillard aren't still together -- biker girls tend to look pretty decent in black leather. Sexy. (You need a hanky to mop up some of that drool, perv? -ed.)

All joking aside, Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff need to remember that this is the Canadian House of Commons we're talking about here -- not The Young and the Restless.

Although one does wonder what Stephane Dion will do next week when his evil twin brother makes a reapperance on the scene. (You'll know him when you see him -- he's the one with the mustache.)