The resignation yesterday evening of Maxime Bernier, and the events that preceded it, do not reflect badly only on the former foreign affairs minister. They speak also to poor judgment on the part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who entrusted Mr. Bernier with a level of responsibility to which he appears to have been singularly unsuited.
In a world of serious issues, it is troubling what little seriousness often goes into the filling of sensitive cabinet posts. Few of those posts are more important than Foreign Affairs, where the matters at stake are perhaps more sensitive than at any other. Yet it is clear that Mr. Bernier had neither the maturity, the experience nor the good judgment to handle the role. Having performed unremarkably as Industry Minister, his appointment to Foreign Affairs last August came as a surprise. And his performance since then has raised doubts about how the Prime Minister could ever have believed he was qualified for the responsibility.
Mr. Bernier's brief tenure will be remembered almost exclusively for its gaffes. Most memorable, and perhaps most damaging to Canada's international interests, was last month's public call while in Afghanistan for Kandahar governor Asadullah Khalid to be replaced – a comment that severely undermined Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and may in fact have ensured that Mr. Khalid kept the job for longer than he otherwise would have. But it was the emerging details of his relationship with Julie Couillard that finally gave Mr. Harper little choice but to effectively admit his mistake in appointing him.
When stories first emerged about Mr. Bernier's personal life, calls for his resignation appeared overwrought. The fact that he was dating – or had dated – a woman with past ties to biker gangs seemed of little consequence, and Mr. Harper's dismissive tone to opposition questions was defensible. But that assumed that the minister had the good sense to keep his public and private lives separate.
Instead, it has emerged that Mr. Bernier behaved more carelessly than would be expected of a mid-level bureaucrat, let alone the person running the Foreign Affairs department. It was reported yesterday that the minister had left sensitive classified documents at Ms. Couillard's apartment – documents that were apparently retrieved only when she took it on her own initiative through her lawyer to notify his department and have them returned.
“It is a very serious mistake – regardless of who the minister is, regardless of personal life – to leave classified documents in an unsecured location,” Mr. Harper said in announcing Mr. Bernier's resignation. No argument there. But it is nearly as serious a mistake to appoint someone with such poor discipline to a position that requires so much of it. Mr. Bernier's spectacular flame-out is a lesson in the perils of failing to perform due diligence when filling senior cabinet posts.
