Max and Julie

“Fin des voies rapides,” a street sign said beside the Autoroute Robert-Cliche south of Quebec City on the way to Saint-Georges de Beauce. End of the fast lane.

A Photo gallery

A top RCMP official suggested yesterday the force might be conducting an investigation involving former Foreign Affairs minister Maxime Bernier’s ex-girlfriend, Julie Couillard.

Julie Couillard’s autobiography coming in the fall

I wrote a piece for the magazine about the interesting relationship between Julie Couillard and media giant Quebecor. Here it is.

3:21:48 PM

At least now Julie Couillard’s lawyer can’t complain that she’s being treated any differently than her ex-minister ex-boyfriend:

So it turns out that Julie Couillard met Max Bernier under the same circumstances that got that guy fired from Michael Fortier’s office two days ago: the fine folks at Kevlar Real Estate, who continue to deny that Julie Couillard was their employee, set her up with Bernier so she could push their project to build a new federal office building in Quebec City. (WARNING to readers allergic to French: the link takes you to an article in the cursed language of Molière. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE!!!!) (Sorry, but a couple of readers requested that). (But I digress.)

With little else better to do between 3:30 and 5:30 this afternoon, The Commons is going to kill a couple of hours at Day One of what we’ll wildly tout as the Bernier hearings. Appearing first is Michael Juneau-Katsuya, the oft-quoted former CSIS agent. The last hour and 15 minutes will be split between a pair of RCMP commissioners.

ALSO AT MACLEANS.CA: A liveblog review of My Story, by Julie Couillard