Minister's onetime partner was potential target of Hells Angel
kingpin, court papers show
TU THANH HA and JULIAN SHER AND DANIEL LEBLANC
May 8, 2008
MONTREAL AND OTTAWA - Julie Couillard, who dated Foreign Affairs
Minister Maxime Bernier recently, was once a potential target
of the Hells Angels kingpin Maurice (Mom) Boucher, who considered
ordering her killing, court testimonies indicate.
"At one point the suspicions were so high that there was
a contract on her … She was going to get it. She came close
to getting it," one of her former partners, a biker turned
informant, testified in 2003.
Ms. Couillard came to the public eye last August when Mr. Bernier
brought her to Rideau Hall the day he was sworn to the Foreign
Affairs portfolio.
An example of how close a relationship they had forged came two
weeks later when Mr. Bernier applied to designate her as the person
eligible to travel with him on his MP's budget. He described her
as "my spouse."
Government officials said Mr. Bernier only found out about her
past when the news media began asking questions about her being
romantically involved with two characters in Quebec's 1990s biker
turf war.
For months, her unusual background had been a source of gossip
among opposition politicians and news media in Ottawa.
The Prime Minister's Office referred the matter to a spokesman
for Mr. Bernier. The spokesman, Neil Hrab, said that the minister
is no longer with Ms. Couillard and that it was a "private
matter."
Mr. Bernier learned of her past relationships after they broke
up, federal officials said. "He was genuinely not aware until
there was media interest," one official said.
Government sources said they broke up months ago.
But other sources said the pair remained close, with Ms. Couillard
appearing as the minister's date at the Politics and the Pen gala
in February.
And in late March, Mr. Bernier and Ms. Couillard were seen by
several MPs dining at the popular restaurant Hy's with Public
Safety Minister Stockwell Day and his wife, according to a Parliament
Hill source. When contacted by a Globe and Mail reporter last
month, Ms. Couillard made no allusion to the end of her relationship
with Mr. Bernier.
"Everyone who is with a minister has to undergo a security
check. Was there a security check?" Bloc Québécois
Leader Gilles Duceppe said to reporters yesterday. "Did the
minister know? Did the RCMP check? Was the Prime Minister aware?
I think it's very important."
Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said the fact that Mr. Bernier
holds a sensitive cabinet position made the issue even more acute.
"Mr. Bernier needs to explain [himself] because we want
to know if there were any matters of national security involved,"
Mr. Dion said.
CTV reported last night that Ms. Couillard accompanied Mr. Bernier
on a trip to the Middle East.
An RCMP spokeswoman said the Privy Council Office is in charge
of background checks.
PCO spokesperson Myriam Massabki confirmed that according to
protocols put in place in the late 1980s, the Privy Council conducts
security checks - but only on prospective cabinet ministers before
their appointment.
"Background checks are conducted only on candidates to cabinet.
It is not done on spouses or immediate family," she told
The Globe and Mail.
Ms. Couillard once was the girlfriend of Gilles Giguère,
who was killed in 1996 before facing trial for firearms and drugs
possession.
By 1997, Ms. Couillard was to marry Stéphane Sirois, a
member of the Rockers, a puppet gang of the Hells Angels.
In a 2003 trial, Mr. Sirois testified that Mr. Boucher told him
he had to choose between the gang and Ms. Couillard because the
biker boss didn't trust her.
"He thought it was her who pushed Giguère to work
with the police, that she worked with police. There were suspicions
floating around," Mr. Sirois testified.
He later added that, "The exact words said by Maurice Boucher
were that at one point the suspicions were so high that there
was a contract on her too. She was going to get it. She came close
to getting it."
Mr. Sirois testified that after they married he confided to her
about Mr. Boucher's suspicions. She was skeptical and began asking
questions of a confidant of Mr. Boucher, the loan shark Robert
Savard, the court heard. Mr. Sirois said the situation forced
him to offer the police his help.
The 38-year-old Ms. Couillard, who works in real estate and lives
in the Montreal area, was labelled "mysterious" and
"the talk of the town" in news reports when she first
appeared with Mr. Bernier.
Mr. Bernier's request to make her his designated traveller was
endorsed by Conservative Whip Jay Hill on Sept. 24 and passed
on to the Speaker of the House. A source said the request was
accepted by the Commons board of internal economy.
Contacted yesterday, Ms. Couillard said Mr. Sirois, whom she
divorced in 1999, was an unreliable witness.
"What Stéphane Sirois said about me, as far as I'm
concerned, has no credibility," she said. "Some people
are after Maxime Bernier and it's my name that'll be dragged in
the mud," she added before refusing to comment further.
Ms. Couillard has no criminal record.
In December, 1995, when she lived with Mr. Giguère, the
Wolverine anti-biker police squad took the couple into custody.
She filed a complaint with the Quebec Police Ethics Commission
about the way a police squad burst into the couple's bedroom and
cuffed them.
She also gave an interview in the lurid crime tabloid Allô
Police, which ran under inch-high headlines: Arrested In The Bedroom!
The Spouse Of The Mobster Gilles Giguère . . . The Actress
Julie Couillard Condemns The Wolverine!
Mr. Giguère and two other men with ties to the Hells Angels,
including Mr. Savard, were charged in connection with an extortion
case. Ms. Couillard was released and was not charged.
By February, 1996, the case collapsed for lack of evidence. Two
months later, Mr. Giguère was the victim of a gangland
slaying, his body discovered in a flooded ditch by the side of
the highway.
