Popcorn anyone?

Does anyone else get the feeling that Big Daddy and his merry band of in-and-out fuckwits are on the verge of a full-metal, Republicanesque, scandalicious meltdown? A girl can dream, can't she?

Tongues first wagged over Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier's striking companion at last summer's cabinet swearing-in, and Parliament Hill is buzzing anew with revelations she was once married to an outlaw biker and lived with another gangster murdered during a bloody turf war in the 1990s.

The divorced Bernier, 45, first began dating former model and aspiring actress Julie Couillard, 38, during the summer of 2007, and the pair caused a minor furor with her revealing attire at last August's cabinet ceremony. According to newspaper reports, officials in the Prime Minister's Office admonished Bernier over her choice of outfit.

Yeah ... 'cause ZOMG she was showing her cleavage!!11!1!1!! That should’ve been the first sign that something was a little off about Miss Biker Chick Couillard. And besides, what’s wrong with biker chicks? Look at KKKate ... hmmmmm. Maybe she’s not the best example. Never mind.

According to documents, trial transcripts and newspaper archives, Couillard was romantically involved with two men with strong ties to the Hells Angels biker gang, La Presse reports.

In 1995, Quebec's elite anti-biker squad stormed the house Couillard shared with her then-boyfriend Gilles Giguère, a well-known underworld figure, in a pre-dawn raid. Couillard was questioned in connection with a murder and extortion plot allegedly involving Giguère, a Hells Angels lawyer, and a Montreal loan shark named Robert "Bob" Savard, key lieutenant to jailed Hells Angels kingpin Maurice "Mom" Boucher.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me but shouldn’t a portfolio as sensitive as Foreign Affairs be headed by a minister with a little more discretion? Of course, look who Big Daddy has in charge of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness — a man who believes that dinosaurs roamed the Earth. In the Garden of Eden. With Adam and Eve. 6000 years ago. Moving on then.

After a long interrogation, she was released, later filing a complaint to the provincial police commission. She talked of her ordeal in a 1996 interview with Allô Police, a now-defunct Montreal crime tabloid. Couillard lived with Giguère for three years beginning in 1993, until he decided to become a police informer after being arrested with a cache of machine guns and 20 kilograms of marijuana.

I smell movie of the week. Hey, Couillard’s an actress — she could totally play herself. How believable would that be?

But Giguère was gunned down in April of 1996, before his trial could begin. Police discovered his body in a ditch east of Montreal. The next year, Couillard began dating Stéphane Sirois, another gangland figure who would later become her husband.

Sirois was a member of the Rockers, a Hells Angels puppet club that biker experts say was responsible for taking over drug territories in and around Montreal and eliminating the Hells Angels' competitors. Sirois later admitted to being a member of a Rockers "baseball team" – who intimidated rivals with baseball bats and smashed up bars that refused to allow the gang to deal drugs – and testified against more than a dozen of his former associates in a 2002 mega-trial.

During that testimony, Sirois contended Boucher had presented an ultimatum: he had to choose Couillard or his gang. He chose the former, but after their 1999 divorce, Sirois became a police informant, and returned to the gang as a mole.

This could get delicious. I eagerly await further tap-dancing on the part of the woefully underwhelming Minister.