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Petti Fong

It has all the elements of an Ian Fleming spy novel: a dapper cabinet minister, missing secret documents and a woman with a  dangerous past and a revealing dress.
In a minority government known for its tight control of the agenda, Canada's Conservatives this week suffered what may be their biggest scandal since coming to power two years ago.
Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, who was appointed in August last year,  resigned this week only hours before his former girlfriend went on television to reveal more than just her dramatic cleavage - that he had left briefing notes about an important Nato meeting at her apartment.
The dashing Mr Bernier, who was supposed to raise the party's profile in Quebec, became the Conservatives' biggest liability after it came to light that his former girlfriend, Julie Couillard, had a string of relationships with shady characters connected to a motorcycle gang in Quebec.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper had steadfastly backed his minister, chastising opposition leaders for raising the issue of whether there was a security concern and calling them 'a group of gossipy old busybodies'.
Two days after resigning on Monday, Mr Bernier made his first public statement about the issue.
'I forgot confidential government documents at Ms Julie Couillard's residence. With humility I take full and sole responsibility for my actions,' he said. 'I also express regret over the negative impact caused by recent events on Ms Couillard's private life.'
Although Mr Bernier has refused to discuss private affairs in public, his former girlfriend was not so reticent. After her past  links with bikers became public, Ms Couillard  told a television interviewer that she was left on her own.
'I did nothing wrong,' she said in the interview, in which she disclosed that Mr Bernier had left the documents in her flat and claimed that her mattress had been bugged. 'I am not guilty of anything. I did nothing to embarrass my country.'
Ms Couillard, who said she had worked as a real estate agent and an entrepreneur and was previously approached to run for the Conservatives, said she did the interview 'to re-establish credibility and dignity'.
Ms Couillard first raised eyebrows when she accompanied Mr Bernier for his swearing-in ceremony last year, wearing a low-cut dress that she thought was inappropriate. But she says it was Mr Bernier who told her to wear the outfit and put a jacket over the top. 'I should have listened to my feminine instinct that told me not to wear that dress,' she said.
Ms Couillard said it had been fun to meet world leaders and the couple had dined with the prime minister at his official residence in Ottawa. During a reception in New York, Ms Couillard met US President George W. Bush who said, as they approached: 'Maxime, well, well, well. Haven't you been keeping good company!'
The whole sordid saga has made Ms Couillard a celebrity.
Her former boyfriend, meanwhile, disappeared off the radar screen as the government shuffled him to the backbenches.
It seemed far removed from when Mr Bernier, 45, was a rising star for the Conservatives and seemed to relish his increasingly high profile. He helped found a right-wing think-tank called the Montreal Economic Institute and was considered an important player for the Conservatives in the key  province of Quebec.
He won by 67 per cent of the popular vote in his riding of Beauce, south of Quebec city, taking the seat from the Liberals and the same riding once held by his father for more than a decade.
In April, an annual survey of parliamentary staff for the Hill Times newspaper voted Mr Bernier the 'sexiest man' in the House of Commons and the best-dressed male MP.
The editor of the paper said Ms Couillard helped him win because  all the pictures taken with her in 'the' low-cut dress  had added to the couple's glamour.
Ms Couillard said the relationship with Mr Bernier had ended when she found the documents in her apartment in mid-April. Panicking, she contacted a lawyer, who advised her to return them. It is the timing of when the minister realised the documents were missing that has fired up the opposition.
'This is amateur hour,' said the Liberal's foreign affairs spokesman Bob Rae.  'Why did it take the government five weeks to discover the documents were missing?'
Mr Rae said the government did nothing while the Nato briefing papers were left in a private residence.
Mr Bernier's apparent carelessness with documents was further highlighted this week when a New Democratic Party MP,  who was travelling with him on a commercial flight to Scotland for a meeting, said she could clearly read parts of briefing notes he had stuffed into his seat pocket.
His resignation and the appointment of David Emerson to the foreign minister's post has left the government with serious credibility problems and erupted at a most inopportune time for Mr Harper. He announced Mr Bernier's resignation just hours before leaving for Europe and meetings with Nato leaders.
The government said Mr Bernier had resigned because of a security breach and that it had nothing to do with his former girlfriend's past.
But former Canadian Security Intelligence Service officer Michel Juneau-Katsuya  said  that, from a security point of view, Ms Couillard's past relationships with people associated with organised crime  was an issue.
He said bikers had a history of implanting moles in law enforcement agencies and government agencies. 'We're seeing someone who seemed to demonstrate the pattern of working her way into government,' Mr Juneau-Katsuya said.
Mr Bernier's latest problems were only the latest in a series of gaffes he made during his time as minister.
Last year he took a C$22,000 (HK$173,600) flight to Laos, the most expensive plane trip by anyone in government over the last two years, to attend a fairly minor conference on Francophone issues while a government official also attending took a flight that cost C$2,700.
Mr Bernier angered the government in Afghanistan recently when he publicly mused that the governor of Kandahar should be replaced.
Foreign Affairs officials immediately put out a statement backtracking on the comment.
The government was also left scrambling earlier this month when Mr Bernier promised to use Canadian military aircraft to deliver aid to victims in Myanmar's  cyclone disaster. When none of the planes were available, the government had to rent a Russian plane at a cost of C$1 million.



Mighty Max's final gaffe