News

Headline: “He ‘destroyed my life,' girlfriend says.”

Then she returned the favour.

So many questions remain unanswered in the wake of the Profumo-like scandal that brought down former cabinet minister Maxime “Mad Max” Bernier this week:

What was he doing in Julie Couillard's house so long after they had broken up? Why did he leave sensitive documents there? Then, when he realized they were missing, why didn't he ask for them back? Why did she take so long to say she had them?

And why did she have to do it so publicly? “Honey,” so many of the pundits seem to be saying, “why you gotta go and be like that?”

If you ask me, he did it to himself. He set the trap, carefully arranged the sticks and leaves over the pit, then stepped on it and fell in. If ever a man was “hoist by his own petard,” it was Mr. Bernier (with Ms. Couillard the petard).

To me, the whole thing looks like a “booty call” gone horribly wrong.

At first, I was perplexed by the timelines of their relationship. They broke up in January, supposedly, perhaps even December (she decided to end it, she says, “shortly before Christmas”).

Yet they were seen together after that at numerous political functions.

I finally figured out why: She was honouring the kooky edict she claims he delivered in the early days of their courtship, that no matter what happened in their relationship she would continue to pretend to be his girlfriend – to be his “official” girlfriend – for at least a year. Otherwise, she said, Mr. Bernier was afraid it would be bad for his image. He didn't want it to seem like he changed girlfriends, Ms. Couillard says, “like you change your shirts, as they say.”

But clearly, something a little less, or more, than “official” happened that one day in April, because it goes above and beyond the call of booty – I mean, duty – for him to wind up back at her place, with a bunch of sensitive government documents in his briefcase. Documents he then proceeded, with what can only be described as a willful, fateful wantonness or self-destructiveness, to leave behind!

Why didn't he call for them in the next day or two? My wife, Pam, thinks he must have been drunk (that's how so many of these “reunions” seem to happen) and had no idea ex post facto where he left them. But I think if you've experienced a recidivistic tryst with an ex, and then you can't find some papers in the next day or two, you have a pretty good idea where they are.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. My point is: Even after they broke up, she honoured her promise to him. She set aside her feelings of disgust, boredom, bitterness, anger, whatever led her to give him the boot in the first place, and allowed herself to be squired around to numerous (what had to be heinously dull) functions as his “official” girlfriend.

Quite menschy, in my view. Noble, even. The last thing you want to do when you've broken up with someone is go around to a bunch of parties pretending to be his girlfriend.

But she did, because she promised she would, and she honoured that promise. Even though they were broken up, she was loyal, she had his back.

If only he had her back. And if only he'd been as much of a mensch as she was, he'd probably still have a job.

If he had just defended her a bit when the news broke that she used to date some bikers, and said, “Hey, you know what, I did know about her past, but she's still a wonderful woman, and she's put it all behind her.”

But he didn't. He distanced himself from her, according to her (admittedly somewhat conflicting) testimony, failed to return her calls, “abandoned” her just when it must have seemed to her that everything was going pear-shaped and her (admittedly perhaps already somewhat compromised) reputation was being besmirched.

And for what? She was guilty of dating him, and wearing a low-cut dress.

Obviously, Ms. Couillard is no saint. In fact, you could say with low-cut dresses and taste for bad-boy bikers, she's really rather … naughty. And yes, she did ask the Toronto Star for $50,000 for an exclusive interview, but I don't blame her for that. What else has she got out of this whole moronic fiasco? She didn't want to be the fool, the patsy, the fall gal.

If she was going down, she was taking someone with her. I've been interested to see how many women have chimed in to the chorus casting mighty thunderbolts down upon Ms. Couillard's superbly coiffed coconut. Ladies: She refused to be the victim. She empowered herself. Isn't that supposed to be a good thing?

She may have been no angel. But Mr. Bernier, it seems to me, was no less than a fool, the true Icarus of the piece. His was an act of purest self-immolation. He left career-ending documents at her house during a (possible) booty call, then pissed her off? Then cut off contact with her? What was he thinking?

Gentlemen: Let this be a lesson to us all. Insofar as it is possible, be decent to your exes. Stand by them, even after you break up with them, lest ye end up like Maxime “Cautionary Tale” Bernier.

Be a mensch, before, during and after you date a woman. (And what kind of man tells a woman, as she claims he did, that in the event of a breakup she'll have to pretend to date him for reasons of his image? It's like a PR pre-nup. It's saying to her: “I care about you but I care about my image more.”) Especially when, it needs hardly be said, she's easy on the eyes and not exactly publicity-averse.

Ask Jimmy Wales, who dated kooky former Fox TV pundit Rachel Marsden, then dumped her with egregious venom via a little thing he invented called Wikipedia.

She wasn't able to bring him down, to “Couillard” him. But it wasn't for lack of trying.

Anyway, I don't believe Mr. Bernier was “Couillarded” so much as hoist with his own petard. If, as one of my esteemed colleagues suggested in yesterday's paper, he was “whacked,” then he brought it on himself.

Mr. Bernier was like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas: a loose cannon, out of control, bringing heat, embarrassing the bosses. Sooner or later, it was inevitable he would be led into the tile-floored room (with a drain in the floor, for the blood).

But unlike Joe Pesci, he gave his hitwoman the weapon; he gave her a motive. He insulted her, then turned his back on her.

Is it any wonder she put two in the back of his head?