OFF THE WIRE
nationalpost.com
Quebec taxpayers have long known that they pay more than other provinces for road construction - 30% is the usual estimate - even as those roads threaten to collapse beneath and on top of them. That money had to be going somewhere, and it wasn't to the local food bank or the United Way. This week, at long last, a more official picture of alleged corruption in Quebec's construction industry is emerging. And sadly enough, it seems even the wilder speculations may have had considerable substance.
A government-commissioned report led by former Montreal police chief Jacques Duscheneau (and leaked, appropriately enough, to media this week) found evidence of fraudulent bid processes; incompetent, non-existent and possibly corrupt government oversight; biker gang involvement; money laundering; and political kickbacks. If corroborated, it is a scandal of epic proportions.
An unnamed engineer quoted in Mr. Duscheneau's report explains one apparently routine dodgy practice: "Suppose an engineer from a firm in charge of overseeing a project has to authorize $100,000 for supplementary work. He finds a way to get double that from [the Transport Department]. Now he has $100,000 clear to share: the firm can use it to contribute to political parties and the contractor can use it to pay his workers under the table."
The Transport Department could put a stop to this, of course, if it was properly motivated - which it may not be - and had enough qualified engineers to know when it's being hoodwinked, which it apparently does not.
"Transport Quebec has no specialized estimator capable of regularly realizing the actual cost of an infrastructure project involving roads," an unnamed former employee told Mr. Duscheneau's investigators. The report says the department "lack[s] ... resources to do comparative analysis or to visit work sites." Instead, it often makes esti-mates "based on bygone comparable projects" - not such a great idea, if those projects were themselves hopelessly bent.
"The more contracts [companies] get, the more they give; the more they give, the more influence they have; the more influence they have, the more they get contracts," an unnamed political aide told investigators. (Traditionally, Quebec's construction firms have been especially generous to the Liberals.) "And this influence, they exercise it everywhere. ... They become almost untouchable."
"The Mafia is involved in it, and so are the bikers," according to one source. Another familiar with Quebec's biker gangs says the Hells Angels have "everything to do with asphalt in Montreal and the surrounding area." The report alleges a construction firm paid a Mafioso's legal bills during his 2004 trial.
As a result of Mr. Duscheneau's investigation, 13 cases have already been turned over to police. This is good news - or it will be, if the province's beleaguered justice system can cobble together the resources to try the accused. But Premier Jean Charest's continued refusal to call a public inquiry - reiterated on Friday - is no longer simply untenable. It borders on the surreal. The fact his government gave Mr. Duscheneau his marching orders, and vows to ferret out and eliminate any corruption it finds, isn't something for Mr. Charest to crow about. It's the bare minimum of curiosity he could possibly have professed, and he did so only after years of pressure.
Mr. Duscheneau's report brings Mr. Charest and his Liberals under suspicion along with the rest of Quebec's political class. As such, his government and its agencies cannot be solely responsible for getting to the bottom of these allegations. The case for an independent inquiry, with a sweeping mandate, could hardly be any stronger.
