Maxime, You Naughty Scamp

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier has interesting friends and associates. The spotlight has been shining on Bernier for his choice of lady friends. The Bloc Quebecois wants a national security probe (not related to alien abduction type probes) into Bernier's relationship with biker moll Julie Couillard. Who would have guessed that shagging a girl with numerous links to Hell's Angels would raise suspicions?



The Stephen Harper Party is poo-pooing the whole affair, crying foul that the opposition are being busybodies. After all, what happens in the bedroom and in private is no business of the public or the government. Right... because conservatives would never do anything like meddle in people's private lives. Ain't that so Margaret Truduea? Wouldn't you concur Ms Stronach?

Profumo Keeler Profumo Keeler Profumo... Adscam?

But even the RCMP has warned about criminal infiltration of politics. As long as eight years ago, then-RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli shocked MPs by publicly stating that organized crime was targeting Parliament and other national institutions.

A former CSIS agent whose investigative work has been referenced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper backed up the Bloc position Friday.

Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former Mountie who spent 21 years with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said Couillard's past biker associations demand the attention of security officials.

Now, titillating as it might be to speculate on Bernier's involvement with a bike gang babe, Couillard has never been charged with an offence and has no criminal record. She's one step removed from the criminality of the bikers she lived with.

However, the RCMP has shown a rather more active interest in Bernier's association with one Michael Chamas. A picture of Bernier and Chamas beaming for the camera at a Conservative Party of Canada fundraiser in January of 2008 has caught the eye of the national police.

Chamas was arrested along with 27 other people on March 26 as part of Project Cancun, a joint investigation by the RCMP, Sûreté du Québec and aboriginal police on the Kahnawake and Kanesetake reserves near Montreal, and the Akwesasne reserve near Cornwall.

The bulk of those arrested are accused of drug trafficking, however Chamas faces 10 counts relating to the possession of illegal weapons.

In the fall of 2007, the Lebanese-born Chamas was arrested in Switzerland after a routine customs inspection turned up 2 million euros in cash. The money was seized pending an investigation by Swiss authorities. He is also facing other legal difficulties closer to home.

Oh interestinger! Note the dates if you will, in the autumn of 2007 Swiss authorities nab Chamas moving two million in Euros and in January of 2008 Canada's Foreign Minister Bernier is photographed with him at a party fundraiser, where Chamas was one of the speakers. The event was apparently organized by riding association president Luc Provost. This is the freaking Foreign Affairs Minister, would they not have vetted the speaker at a fundraiser? Would they not have been aware that only months earlier he'd been arrested in another country with a very large and suspicious sum of money?

Perhaps not, the law & order party trusts people with undisclosed sources of income. But surely they would have been interested to know that our own government has legal issues with Mr Chamas.

The Canada Revenue Agency accuses Chamas of owing $952,355 in unpaid taxes.

Documents show that federal officials sought to freeze his assets, including his suburban Montreal house and four other properties, until the matter is settled.

Documents filed in Federal Court allege that Chamas didn't file corporate tax returns between 2001 and 2005. On its corporate website, Global Village is described as a company that "brings together a diverse group of companies seeking employee referrals, and projects requiring their expertise."

I suppose ten weapons charges from a massive arrest in joint operations between "RCMP, Sûreté du Québec and aboriginal police on the Kahnawake and Kanesetake reserves near Montreal, and the Akwesasne reserve near Cornwall" are just a little icing on the cake. Now that big Steve is strutting about on the world stage, it might serve his burgeoning team of scandal magnets to do a few minor background checks before pressing the flesh. Maxime Bernier seems to have gone out of his way to provide the clearest of impressions of impropriety. He is tainted by his own poor judgement and is unfit to serve in such a sensitive porfolio.