Maxime Bernier

Maxime Bernier, a Canadian politician whose photos are used to commit scams

Maxime Bernier was born on January 18, 1963 in Saint-Georges, Quebec. He holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the Université du Québec à Montréal and a law degree from the University of Ottawa.

Elected to the House of Commons in 2006 for the Conservative Party, he became Minister of Industry in the Harper government the same year. He resigned from the government in 2008 after a case of confidential documents. In 2017, he narrowly lost the race for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

In 2018, he left the Conservatives and founded the People’s Party of Canada (PPC). In the 2019 federal election, the party received about 1.6% of the national vote and won no seat. In 2021, it rose to about 4.9%, still without winning a seat.

His photos used by scammers

Some scammers usurp the identity of Maxime Bernier. This hardly works in Canada, where he is easily recognized, but it can work in countries where the Canadian politician is unknown. Scammers have also used photos of other Canadian public figures, such as the politician Pablo Rodriguez and the Quebec speaker Marc Gervais.

The method is always the same. They create fake profiles with his photos, often in a hurry and with little information, then contact women on social networks or dating sites and try to seduce them.

If the seduction works, they move to the second phase: they claim an accident or an emergency, then ask for money and promise to pay it back later. Do not send money to a stranger met on the internet. Our page on romance scams details these methods, and the list of photos used by scammers shows other stolen identities.