Business As Usual, In Quebec

Quebecers are so accustomed to believing that corruption runs rampant through politics at every level, at business deals, and corporate interests that they do a mental shrug and get on with things.  Former premier Jean Charest had good reason to be nervous, though.  For years he procrastinated about establishing a commission to look into the little matter of corruption in the province's construction industry, although there were credible enough reports of rampant corruption.

The Charbonneau Commission politely did not take up its enquiry cudgel until after the provincial election, but it was a foregone conclusion in any event.  While Quebecers may know about the situation that doesn't mean they approved of it and they felt, in all likelihood, a little shaking up was required at this juncture.  Which led to the minority Parti Quebecois government, another headache for many Quebecers, but in this instance, unavoidable given the circumstances, to their way of thinking.

Rumours abounded about who was involved.  No one seriously thought that the premier himself had anything to do with it all, but he did, after all, do nothing to clean it up, so he was complicit by default.  And there were circulating rumours that other politicians were complicit by design and by a willingness to invest themselves in the corrupt procedures for gain and profit.  That costs of municipal and provincial construction were at least 30% above what prevailed elsewhere was proof enough of complicity.

And now the enquiry, with a helpful explanation of the mafia, its origins and purpose and entanglements and successes.  Not just in Quebec, of course; other provinces, like Ontario, have their infestations as well.  Perhaps not quite to the extent that exists in Quebec, where civil servants of rank and politicians have been suborned to everyone's benefit but that of the ordinary taxpayer.  And, by extension, other Canadians given annual handovers of transfer payments to "have-not" Quebec.

So the office and the party of Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay have been fingered as having skimmed off their share; even more than the Mafia, it seems.  Mayor Tremblay's Vision Montreal party a major beneficiary.  As were named city engineers and other bureaucrats.  Former construction owner Lino Zambito has calmly, for the record, laid it all out, neatly and explicitly.  All those civil servants who had leaned on him over the years for their share, are now sharing the publicity.

"I gave 3% to Mr. [Nicola] Milioto, [identified by a police investigator as a middleman who shuttled payoffs between construction companies and the Mafia].  "He said the money went to the political party organization of Mayor Tremblay.  Who saw it, who it went to in the organization, I don't know."  Mr. Zambito named the engineers directly who profited; Gilles Surprenant and Luc Leclerc.

Kickbacks to Yves Timmens, who gave him lists containing the names of other contractors who bid on public works contracts, to Michael Pacquette, a project manager, to France Theriault, an inspector who garnered 15% in kickbacks.  Clearance for Marcel Hebert, who took nothing.