Five Weeks?

It’s one thing for Max Bernier to have left classified, highly sensitive documents on his girlfriend’s coffee table. It’s another matter entirely for her to have them for five whole weeks.

Five weeks?

Bernier and Harper need to answer for that. Why weren’t the documents recovered the minute Bernier realized he’d left them behind? Did he just forget he’d left them at Couillard’s apartment? Was this an isolated incident or the sort of thing Maxie is prone to when he’s on the hunt? Has somebody done an inventory of the former minister’s documents to veryify that there’s nothing else laying about where it’s not supposed to be? Is Harper properly managing his cabinet? Are other Con ministers just as negligent as Bernier?

Let’s face it, Harper’s cabinet isn’t exactly the faculty from the Rocket Academy but something more akin to the supporting cast from a Charlie Chaplin movie. Bernier wasn’t just the minister of tractor parts, he was foreign affairs minister and yet he operated like a rank amateur.

It’s time that Parliament got to the bottom of this. Somebody has to and it’s plain that Harper won’t do it.

 

The Revenge of Couillard – Bye, Bye Max!

Mad Max Bernier has finally wound up in the ditch. Turns out that his jilted girlfriend, Julie Couillard, did him in after all, not so much because of her tenuous former links with biker gangs but because Maxime left classified documents at her place. From the Toronto Star:

“…Bernier’s departure came just a few hours before Couillard was about to go on air at the French-language television station TVA to say that her former lover was careless with classified documents.”

What does this tell us about Bernier? Nothing we didn’t already know. He was (and presumably remains) a dolt, utterly unsuited to the lofty job of foreign affairs minister that Harper bestowed on him. The guy was a walking disaster from Ottawa to Kandahar.

What does this tell us about Harper? Plenty, although not much that we didn’t already know. Our Furious Leader isn’t very good when events force him off his script. It’s no wonder he’s such a “talking points” control freak. He should have dumped Bernier a long time ago when his blatant incompetence became public during his visit to Kandahar. That, however, would have meant conceding awfully poor judgment in the first place and you don’t readily get that sort of admission from Harpo.

Curious isn’t it that it wasn’t Maxie’s string of blunders that forced Harpo’s hand but the threat of a scorned woman’s revenge. Well, Stevie’s going to have to suck on this one for quite a while.

Here’s another thing that Mad Max illustrates about Hapless Harper – his caucus is razor thin on talent and, even then, he chooses really poorly. Look at the cast of flops and duds – Rona Ambrose, Gordy O’Connor, Johnny Baird, Tony Clements, Vic Toews and, of course, Maxime Bernier. If they’re his first picks, imagine Harper’s “B” team.

All things considered, it’s not such a bad thing that Harpo has run flat out of ideas. If he had’em, who would he appoint to implement them?

 

Bernier to Karzai – Ditch Khalid

Canada’s ForAffMin Maxime Bernier may need to brush up on his diplomacy.

Speaking to reporters at Kandahar airfield, Bernier said it’s time for Afghan president Hamid Karzai to ditch Kandahar governor Asadullah Khalid.

“I think (Karzai) can work with us to be sure the governor will be more powerful, the governor will do what he has to do to help us,” he said. “There’s a question to maybe have a new governor. They’re a sovereign state, they’re going to have to decide the measure the president will have to take about the future of the governor here.

“Is it the right person at the right place at the right time? President Karzai will have to answer these questions as soon as possible.”

Of course there’s nothing in Bernier’s remarks intended to meddle with Afghan sovereignty. Yeah, right. Then again, maybe Karzai needs Bernier to tell him how to run Kandahar province, eh?

It probably won’t take more than a day or two for Karzai to fire back. He got enmeshed in a pretty vicious war or words with the Brits over his appointment for governor of Helmand province. Being an Afghan, these remarks can represent a huge loss of face, especially to a national leader utterly beholden to (aka “held captive by”) his nation’s warlords.