Prime Minister Stephen Harper says it's none of his business that his Foreign Affairs Minister once dated a woman with alleged previous ties to biker gangs.
“I hear that one of my cabinet ministers has an ex-girlfriend,” Mr. Harper told reporters at a hastily called scrum Thursday.
“It's none of my business, none of Mr. Duceppe's business, none of Mr. Dion's business,” he said, referring to the leaders of the Liberal and Bloc Québécois parties.
“Mr. Dion and Mr. Duceppe are quite a group of gossipy old busy-bodies,” the Prime Minister added.
Maxime Bernier echoed that sentiment as questions about his romantic life and potential violations of national security dominated Question Period Thursday.
“Never would I have thought I would get such a nasty and low attack from an opposition party,” Mr. Bernier told the Commons.
“This is about my private life, the private life in the past of my ex-girlfriend. People's private lives are none of your business,” he said.
As the Globe and Mail reported Thursday, Julie Couillard, who recently dated Mr. Bernier, was once a potential target of the Hells Angels kingpin Maurice (Mom) Boucher, who considered ordering her killing, according to court testimony.
“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,” one of her former partners, a biker turned informant, testified in 2003.
Ms. Couillard came to the public eye last August when Mr. Bernier brought her to Rideau Hall the day he was sworn to the Foreign Affairs portfolio.
An example of how close a relationship they had forged came two weeks later when Mr. Bernier applied to designate her as the person eligible to travel with him on his MP's budget. He described her as “my spouse.”
Government officials said Mr. Bernier only found out about her past when the news media began asking questions about her being romantically involved with two characters in Quebec's 1990s biker turf war.
'This is about national security'
The Conservatives refused Thursday in the House of Commons to answer any questions about Mr. Bernier's relationship with Ms. Couillard, including whether he knew about her background at the time he was sworn in as Foreign Affairs Minister, or whether he had discussed it with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.
At one point, Tory MPs booed so loudly during a question by Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale that the Speaker had to intervene. Peter Milliken ruled such queries were in order.
“This is not about Madame Couillard. This is about national security,” said Mr. Goodale.
“This is a fundamental issue of democracy and if the government is not prepared to let the people of Canada have their say and ask decent legitimate questions, then this government stands exposed as government that is denying fundamental democracy.”
Government House Leader Peter Van Loan accused the Opposition of engaging in gutter politics.
“I'm not surprised that the Liberal party continues to engage in deep personal attacks that are not matters of government business,” he said.
“If we're going to spend the time in this House of Commons inquiring into people's personal lives, I think people can conclude that whatever politicians are engaged in that are entirely wasting the taxpayers money and aren't fit for public office.”
“Everyone is entitled to a private life, a home life, be they ministers, journalists or dentists,” added Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon, the government's Quebec lieutenant.
“I don't think we should interfere in people's private life — not yours, not mine, and not Mr. Bernier's.”
For months, Ms. Couillard's unusual background had been a source of gossip among opposition politicians and news media in Ottawa.
Until Thursday, the Prime Minister's Office had referred the matter to a spokesman for Mr. Bernier. The spokesman, Neil Hrab, said that the minister is no longer with Ms. Couillard and that it was a “private matter.”
Mr. Bernier learned of her past relationships after they broke up, federal officials said. “He was genuinely not aware until there was media interest,” one official said.
Government sources said they broke up months ago.
But other sources said the pair remained close, with Ms. Couillard appearing as the minister's date at the Politics and the Pen gala in February.
