Fearing for his government's reputation, Premier Jean Charest released the names of three cabinet ministers who were alleged to have accepted a cruise on a yacht owned by Montreal entrepreneur Tony Accurso who is at the centre of the scandal involving municipal contracts and construction companies.
The Premier also said the accusations against Transport Minister Julie Boulet, junior deputy Transport Minister Norman MacMillan and former Labour minister David Whissell were not true. Mr. Whissell resigned from cabinet amid allegations that his part-ownership in a paving company amounted to a potential conflict of interest after receiving government contracts that were exempted from public tenders.
"We checked the information on these three and it was false. I know of no ministers in my government that went on Mr. Accurso's boat," Mr. Charest told Radio-Canada yesterday. Mr. Charest has refused repeated calls for an inquiry. Instead his government announced Thursday that it was setting up a special police task force of 60 Sûreté du Québec officers and seven prosecutors with RCMP involvement to investigate allegations of corruption, rigging of municipal contracts, involvement of organized crime and influence peddling.
Mr. Charest's government was caught in a whirlwind of rumours and innuendos after Action démocratique du Québec House Leader Sylvie Roy suggested in the National Assembly that she knew of three ministers Mr. Accurso entertained on his yacht. Ms. Roy refused to say who they were. It has been reported that Mr. Accurso entertained numerous city officials, politicians and union officials on the boat. News reports showed that his construction companies received the majority of city infrastructure contracts in Montreal and Laval, worth over $200-million since 2005.
Former leader of the opposition party at Montreal city hall Benoît Labonté said in a Radio-Canada interview that the city was awash in corruption and influence peddling involving Mafia controlled construction companies. After being plagued by recent news reports that he had received money from construction companies for his leadership campaign at Vision Montréal party, Mr. Labonté announced last week his decision to quit municipal politics.
During the interview, Mr. Labonté came clean on his suspicious ties with Mr. Accurso and others. But he also made the astonishing revelation that he informed Mr. Charest last March that three of his ministers were close to Mr. Accurso. Mr. Labonté said his information came from political and police sources. "Mr. Charest was stunned when I told him," Mr. Labonté said.
Mr. Charest said that after receiving the information he instructed his then chief of staff Dan Gagnier to investigate. Mr. Gagnier said after grilling the three ministers, he concluded that they were telling the truth when they denied ever taking a cruise on Mr. Accurso's yacht. However Mr. Labonté, after being told by Mr. Gagnier that the information about the three ministers was wrong, insisted that he still believed it to be accurate.
Mr. Labonté concluded that the only way to get to the bottom of the corruption plaguing the entire political class in Quebec was to conduct a full public investigation into the construction industry.
"The system is so poisoned that we need a public inquiry immediately…The real scandal would be not to have a public inquiry," Mr. Labonté said.
"We haven't closed the door to a public inquiry, but the most effective way to find out who is breaking the laws is through police investigations," Mr. Charest said yesterday.
Rhéal Séguin