Axed Canadian Foreign Minister's girlfriend to bare all in autobiography

Montreal, June 21 : The woman whose revelations toppled Maxime Bernier from his post as Canada's Foreign Affairs minister will tell her life's story in an autobiography to be published this fall.

McClelland and Stewart announced on Friday that it would publish the English-version of Julie Couillard's autobiography.

Montreal-based Les Editions de l'Homme, owned by Quebecor Inc., will come out with the French version.

Couillard shot to prominence when her past ties with members of the Hells Angels were revealed following a relationship with Bernier.

The minister resigned last month after admitting he left classified documents at her Montreal-area home.

Couillard has kept her silence throughout the controversy, aside from a series of exclusive interviews with Quebecor-owned media outlets.

Earlier, The Harper Government had continued to dismiss security concerns over the Bernier-Couillard affair despite two new media reports that raise fresh questions.

A major television agency reported that Julie Couillard met with a man closely tied to criminal bikers in 2006, less than a year before she began dating then-Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier.

And a national newspaper reported that Couillard's house was under RCMP surveillance in 1998.

The opposition had said that the reports are further evidence that the government should be investigating whether Bernier's relationship with Couillard posed a security threat.

Bernier was forced to resign as Foreign Affairs Minister last month after it was revealed that he left classified government documents at Couillard's home.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Couillard dated or lived with a man with Mafia connections, one loan shark, one biker and a businessman who owed a large debt to the Hells Angels.

Bernier started dating Couillard in the spring of 2007. He left confidential documents at her home in April this year.

ANI