Minister's aide fired after Couillard links emerge

by Amy Judd | June 11, 2008 at 08:56 am

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Yet another Minister has lost his job over dating controversial woman Julie Couillard last year.
Federal Public Works Minister Michael Fortier had to dismiss a senior member of his staff because of his romantic relationship with Couillard.
She is considered controversial for a Minister to date because of her romantic relationships with several members of Montreal's biker and criminal underworld.

The Toronto Star reports Fortier says he only became aware on Tuesday that Couillard and one of his Quebec advisers, Bernard Côté, had been dating last year, before she became the girlfriend of former foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier.

Côté failed to inform him that he was dating Couillard, the Star quoted Fortier as saying, at the same time as Montreal property developer Groupe Kevlar Inc. was bidding for a multimillion-dollar contract with the Public Works Department.

Couillard is officially listed as an "affiliated agent" of Groupe Kevlar, although the firm said last month that she was not one of its employees.

"Mr. Côté should have recused himself from having any dealings with the matter at hand, which unfortunately he didn't," Fortier said. Côté offered his resignation, "and I accepted it," the public works minister said.

The Star reports that Fortier found out about the relationship between Côté and Couillard after receiving a telephone call from a reporter for the Montreal newspaper La Presse, asking for comment on the link between the two.