Chantal Herbert makes a very interesting allegation in her latest column concerning Conservative Maxime Bernier and Julie Couillard:

On Wednesday, [Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe] expressed concerns over reports that Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier's former girlfriend once had ties with biker gangs. But the inside story is that, behind the scenes, the Bloc (and the Liberals) had been actively lobbying the media to break the news for weeks.

So why the hesitation to print this story?

Julie Couillard has no criminal record. She has never been charged with criminal activity and some of Quebec's crack investigative reporters failed to find evidence that she has had links with bikers since a 1999 divorce.

The strange thing is that the Liberals seemed surprised by all this.  On May 8, when the story broke, Stephane Dion had this to say:

In Ottawa, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said he had no independent confirmation of the allegations, but what he had heard caused him concern. "Certainly, Mr. Bernier needs to explain because we want to know if there were any matter of national security involved," he told reporters.

Allegations of this sort are particularly grave considering Bernier's responsibilities, Dion said.

Wait a second.  Independent confirmation of the allegations?  Like he read the story in the media and tried to confirm it himself?  According to Chantal Herbert, the Liberals were making the allegations.  And yet Stephane Dion seems to be distancing himself from the allegations, expressing concern over what he read in the paper.

Cute.  Adding another layer to the story he had himself written.

Consider this comment from Michel Guimond, a Bloc Quebecois MP:

Mr. Speaker, it appears from this morning's newspapers that the former spouse of the Minister of Foreign Affairs has a shady past. She was so closely linked with organized crime that her life was allegedly threatened at one time.

Knowing that the underworld does not hesitate to put pressure on people and knowing his former spouse's shady past, should the Minister of Foreign Affairs not have disclosed this situation during his security screening as Minister of Foreign Affairs?

He uses the media as a shield.  He could have stood up and said, "It appears from our investigations into the private lives of Conservative cabinet ministers that the former...", but then that would be unseemly.

But here's a curious thing.  The Conservatives seemed to make the allegation that the media was pressured into printing this story, but no one in the media seems to have picked up on it.  Lawrence Cannon suggested as much:

Mr. Speaker, can the leader of the Bloc Quebecois assure this House that he never took part in a teleconference with reporters or threatened them if they did not go along with his story today?

Of course, if there was a threat, then the media could not pick up on it, as the media would be party of the story.

Duceppe denied the allegation, and Cannon said, "I have taken note of the fact that the leader of the Bloc Quebecois did not threaten any reporters."

Curious that Lawrence Cannon was so specific that it was a teleconference.  He could have just asked, "Can the leader of the Bloc Quebecois assure this House that he never threatened reporters  if they did not go along with his story today?"

Sounds vaguely like Cannon knows a lot about something he's not telling us...yet.

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