Detailed information about Canada’s foreign affairs policy and discussions by NATO nations sat around Ottawa’s airport for hours last week after Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant inadvertently left her briefing binder in the airport lounge.

The more than 200-page binder, containing everything from information about NATO’s challenges to details about conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, Russia and China was found by former Liberal cabinet minister Sheila Copps.

In an interview with iPolitics, Copps said she found the white binder in the departure area last Wednesday while on her way to a business trip in Prince Edward Island.

“It must have been sitting there for close to three hours,” she recounted. “I was getting on a flight at about 8 o’clock and her scheduled departure was 5 o’clock.”

“It wasn’t in an envelope or anything. It was just sitting as an open book.”

Gallant forgot the binder on her way to a NATO parliamentary meeting in Lithuania where she headed the Canadian delegation. She is a member of the House defence committee.

Copps said many of the documents appear to have been prepared by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development. While some had no markings, others were stamped unclassified.”

But while none appeared to be stamped top secret, Copps said the binder had detailed information about Canada’s foreign policy.

“It was certainly a treasure trove for anybody who was wondering about Canada’s foreign policy because it included full briefings on all the hot spots.”

For example, a draft report prepared by Ulla Schmidt, the German general rapporteur entitled Political Transition in Afghanistan: Achievements and Challenges identifies corruption as the most important challenge facing the country.

“According to the report, it is estimated that in 2012 alone, Afghans paid almost $4 billion in bribes, in a country where the entire national budget is less than $8 billion,” Copps wrote in her column in the Hill Times about finding the binder.

Another draft report, by rapporteur Julio Miranda Calha of Portugal, supported a negotiated settlement with the Taliban to calm a ‘resilient insurgency’ in the country, she wrote.

“According to Calha, ‘The Taliban will be a ‘central player in the future of Afghanistan…unless a political solution is found, the insurgency will most likely attempt to launch a large-scale campaign to regain control of substantial portions of the country.”

A third report, by rapporteur Stephen Gilbert of the United Kingdom, titled ‘The Global Spread of Ballistic Missile Defences “painted a grim picture of the multiplication of missile defence systems, in countries like China, North Korea and Russia,” she wrote.

“Russia is set to invest about 40 billion EUR in new weapons and upgrades to its existing air-space defence system,” the report said.

The reports by the rapporteurs are also posted on the NATO Parliamentary Association’s website.

The binder also included correspondence written by NATO parliamentary president Hugh Bayley, informing Russian parliamentarians that their membership had been revoked because of the Russian Federal Assembly’s role in annexing parts of the Ukraine as well as the response from Admiral Vladimir Komoedov, saying sanctions against Russia are useless.

Copps said she gave the binder to former Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal who was at the same meeting in PEI and asked him to get it back to Gallant. Grewal’s wife, Nina Grewal, currently serves as a Conservative MP.

Gallant and other MPs who took part in the NATO parliamentary association meeting have not yet returned from Europe. However, an official from Gallant’s office confirmed that Gallant lost the binder at the airport last week and it was returned Monday.

“All we know was she mentioned she was in a rush trying to get to the (plane) – you’ve got your purse, carry on luggage and a couple of binders. You fumble to get something out for the boarding attendant, you put something down and then forget to pick it back up.”

The official, who asked not to be named, said Gallant had a separate, electronic copy of the briefing binder, which she was able to use during the meeting.

This is not the first time a Conservative MP’s NATO briefing binder has gone astray. Former Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier had to resign from cabinet after he left his briefing binder for a NATO meeting at the home of his girlfriend, Julie Couillard. Gallant’s was for the NATO Parliamentary Association, a separate organization linked to NATO.

Copps is still somewhat surprised Gallant left the binder at the airport.

“I thought she would have been more careful about it, especially with NATO stuff.”

Public servants from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development did not respond with an answer to a question posed by iPolitics about the degree of sensitivity of the documents in the binder or the effect their disclosure could have.

Instead, Adam Hodge, press secretary to Foreign Affairs minister John Baird responded to the query, with a partisan attack on Sheila Copps.

“We understand that the documents referred to are unclassified briefing documents, many of which are likely available through open source reporting,” Hodge wrote in an e-mail. “Those facts wouldn’t get in the way of a good story from a hyper-partisan columnist and former Liberal Cabinet Minister.”

Hodge pointed out Copps participated in an election mission in Cambodia last July that was criticized.

“If Ms. Copps wants to point fingers or make accusations, perhaps she should answer questions about her own participation in that mission last year.”

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