Bernier-Couillard: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Bernier's dalliances are turning into quite the story. In this morning's newspaper, we find that Ms. Couillard had those papers for five weeks.

Questions about how secret government documents went missing for five weeks without alarms being raised dogged Stephen Harper's government the day after Maxime Bernier was forced out as foreign affairs minister over the security breach.

The Prime Minister, in Paris on a European tour he began only hours after he announced Mr. Bernier's resignation, essentially declared the affair over – insisting that a Foreign Affairs Department review of the incident is enough, and rejecting an expanded probe.

Superficially that might almost seem reasonable - after all, no harm was really done, right?

Wrong.

This whole business calls into question the continence of the governing part with respect to classified documents. This is not just an "oops, I forgot them overnight" moment - not only did Bernier leave those papers for five weeks, it's pretty clear that he did exactly nothing to retrieve them:

“Why did it take the government five weeks to discover that documents were missing, and why did it take the government five weeks to ask a question either of the member for Beauce, the former minister, or of Madame Couillard?” Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae asked in the Commons.

“Why do you sit on your duffs and do nothing for five weeks?”

Government House Leader Peter Van Loan insisted that the Prime Minister's Office was told about the missing documents only on Monday, “and after being informed of the situation with these documents, the Prime Minister acted.”

During that time, Ms. Couillard could easily have made as many copies as she desired. To dismissively say that "no secrets were breached" misses the point entirely. Those documents were classified for a reason, and both Harper and Bernier have shown us a blatant disregard for those reasons.

Further, it shows us the cracks and weaknesses in Harper's management style. In order to maintain the facade of being competent, Harper has to exact an ever increasing amount of direct control on his people, their actions and the actions of their associates. The question that the Bernier affair opens is not "what was breached?" (although that is a valid question), but rather we should be asking "what's next?".

Try as they might, the PMO cannot effectively control every action of the government and its ministers. Because the PMO has imposed such a strong grip on the ministerial and senior bureaucracy of all departments, you have to know that there's going to be more - it's inevitable. And next time may well be much more serious for Canada.

Canadians should not accept PMSH's blithe attempts to brush this mess off as a "non-issue" - just as AdScam demonstrated that the Chretien-era Liberals had lost sight of their responsibilities to the public, "L'Affaire Bernier" shows us that the HarperCon$ lack the flexibility, judgment and discretion necessary to safeguard Canada's interests.

Bye bye, Maxime

I hear that Maxime Bernier has resigned as minister of Foreign Affairs.

The excuse for Bernier's resignation seems pretty lame when you consider how fiercely Harper protects his inner circle:

“It is a very serious mistake – regardless of who the minister is, regardless of personal life – to leave classified documents in an unsecured location.”

A source tells The Canadian Press that Mr. Bernier left an extremely sensitive classified document at Ms. Couillard's apartment, and her lawyer notified the Foreign Affairs department about the document on the weekend.

Now, not only do we have the minister demonstrating yet again his incompetence by leaving files lying about, but worse, he leaves them at his girlfriend's apartment? Bernier's conduct on the world stage has been, well, disappointing to say the least - showing us that he has only a marginally better grasp of the subject than his predecessor.

But then again, how much depth in foreign affairs does Harper need when he takes his orders from the current occupant of the White House - a man whose idea of foreign affairs involves talking to California.

Somehow, handing the portfolio to David Emerson isn't exactly reassuring either - he's the man who handed $1 billion of Canada's money to the White House as part of Harper's vaunted "gettin' things done" softwood lumber agreement.

So Much For That Minister

Harper's rapidly running out of cabinet-making material. The latest minister of his to demonstrate their utter cluelessness is Maxine Bernier, who is bungling his trip to Israel.

Uncertainty continued to surround Ottawa's position on a key element in the search for peace in the Middle East, as Bernier wrapped up his first visit to the region.

The confusion on the potentially explosive issue of Israeli settlements arose Sunday when Bernier was twice asked during a West Bank news conference whether Ottawa – which officially opposes new settlement activity by Israel – makes a distinction between housing construction in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

Both times, the Canadian minister pointedly ignored the question. The second time it was asked, he abruptly ended the news conference and left the room.

One of two things - either he didn't dare answer the question because he ran out of PMO-approved script, or the minister was not briefed on one of the key issues relating to Israel.

In the first case, Bernier's not being an effective minister, merely a puppet for whatever partisan crap the PMO wants to throw around. In the second case, either the minister or his advisors (or both) completely missed the point in briefings before you go into a politically volatile region.

"Traditionally, there hasn't been any ambiguity in our policy," a Canadian expert on the Middle East told the Star yesterday. "There might be some ambiguity now."

So, after Gary Lunn's massive CNSC bungle, Mr. Bernier making a royal cock-up of his trip to Israel and Helena Guergis' bone-headed comments, it's becoming clear that the Conservatives are in serious need of new wood for cabinet making. Having fired so many of his original frontline ministers, and turfing out of caucus anyone who dares question his all-knowing wisdom, Harper's left scraping the bottom of the barrel for ministers - and hoping that they don't screw up "too badly".

How promising.