Bernier blunders

Maxime Bernier is in hot water again. The embattled MP is facing a firestorm over comments he made about the long-form census that appear to be untrue, and contradictory to his stance on the issue two years ago.

He recently suggested he received thousands of complaints about the long-form census when he was Minister of Industry, and that the government was addressing those concerns by getting rid of it.

But he has been unable to provide any proof of these complaints, which Bernier says came in the form of emails.

Documents released by Industry Canada reportedly show that employees have no idea what Bernier was talking about.

Then on Tuesday, Canadians learned that Bernier had actually praised the census in 2006 as an “essential” tool for Canadian society. It was the latest twist in the controversy, and controversies are not foreign to this MP.

Bernier was born in Beauce, Québec, to former Beauce MP Gilles Bernier. He went to the Université be Québec in Montréal, where he obtained a commerce degree in 1985, and then on to law school at the University of Ottawa.

He held various positions at the National Bank, the Securities Commission of Québec and Standard Life of Canada. He became vice president of the Montreal Economic Institute, a Québec think-tank advocating smaller government.

Bernier was elected to the Beauce riding in January 2006 with 67 per cent of the vote, the largest majority outside of Alberta. He was appointed Minister of Industry and then Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2007.

In his post, he travelled to Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he told reporters that Kandahar’s governor Asadullah Khalid should be replaced. This set off a firestorm of criticism and calls for Bernier to resign.

The Prime Minister defended him and Bernier kept his post. But it was around this time that Bernier reportedly left sensitive documents pertaining to the April NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania at the home of former girlfriend Julie Couillard.

Bernier was leaving her house in Laval, Québec in April 2007, and asked her to dispose of some documents for him. “Could you put this in the garbage for me?” he is said to have asked before instructing her to wait until pickup day. “After all, they are confidential documents.”

Bernier resigned his cabinet position when Couillard went public with the allegations.

In a book released during the 2008 election campaign, Couillard made a number of allegations against Bernier, including that he made disparaging remarks about the PM and the constituents of Beauce. Bernier has denied her entire account.

“I made an error in going out with that woman, but that is in the past and I have turned towards the future,” Bernier told a radio station in Beauce.

He won the Beauce riding easily in 2008 despite the scandal.

Bernier kept a low profile for the next two years until the controversy surrounding his census comments erupted this month.