CP: Bernier affair a security issue: experts

OTTAWA - Some security experts are taking issue with the Conservative government's characterization of the Maxime Bernier affair as a private matter, saying questionable personal links could leave the minister - and Canadian interests - vulnerable.

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The Conservatives repeatedly brushed aside opposition cries that Bernier had placed national security at risk by allowing a woman with apparently unsavoury ties to enter his orbit.

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But Chris Mathers, a security consultant who spent years as an undercover RCMP officer, said Bernier's close associates must be closely scrutinized.

"It's a security issue, for sure. . . It's not a private thing when you associate with someone who has criminal associates, and you're a person in authority.

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http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2008/05/08/5512046-cp.html

If one of Martin or Chretien's cabinet minister's had been involved with a former biker wife.

Our security can't have been that much jeopardized, what with Bernier being so thick that it's unlikely that he is given much access to really sensitive information.

- B