‘Cartel’ bid described

Small firms sought control: Zambito

There were 15 to 20 people in the room when it happened, according to Lino Zambito.

It was the spring of 2008, and the former head of Infrabec Construction claims that he had been invited to attend a Saturday breakfast meeting at a hotel in Blainville.

The fact that the event started at 6 a.m. was unusual.

Who showed up and what reportedly happened next was far more astonishing.

Around the table, Zambito said, were representatives from more than a dozen small and medium-sized construction companies operating on the North Shore — including Doncar, Pavages 4 Saisons, G. Giuliani Inc., Poly Excavation and Civex.

As they sipped their coffee, the event’s host, identified as businessman André Durocher of Groupe Panthère, “took out the list of calls for tender that were under way for the following month, which was public. And he started to ask the entrepreneurs who had an interest in this or that project.”

The guests happily obliged, Zambito said, and it was agreed who would win by placing the lowest bid.

The anecdote is one of several new pieces of information that can now be reported following the lifting of a partial publication ban on Zambito’s testimony before the Charbonneau Commission.

On Oct. 4, the former construction boss told commissioners that he thinks Durocher was trying to establish a bid-rigging system similar to the one that existed at the time in Montreal, but that Durocher purposely neglected to invite the biggest players in construction in the region to the breakfast because he “honestly thought (the smaller companies) would be able to form a sort of force and impose that force on (the bigger contractors).”

The idea that such a scheme could be maintained for very long was, Zambito said, ridiculous.

“It was a bit suicidal, in front of people that you really don’t know, to say: ‘Okay, I will take this contract,’ ” he explained. “You’ve got, I don’t know, 18 witnesses. I found it very illogical … very clumsy.”

As he had predicted, the North Shore ‘cartel’ — which allegedly extended to Blainville, St-Jérôme, Mirabel, Boisbriand, and other muni- cipalities — fell apart within three months, Zambito testified.

The story about collusion over croissants was hardly the only example Zambito provided of alleged dirty dealings going on during the time Infrabec was operating in Boisbriand.

He told the commissioners that engineering and law firms in Boisbriand and surrounding towns had an iron grip on local governments, funding election campaigns and ensuring that the people they favoured won positions at city hall. It was those same firms that would draw up the plans for construction projects and monitor the work, he said; if the wrong construction company won the contract, the firms would “make your life difficult.”

“At a certain point, good sense tells you that: ‘maybe I’m better off not (bidding in) St-Jérôme … in Blainville, in Mascouche. I’d be better off staying where engineering firms favour me, where I’m welcome, where they will help me,’ ” he said. In his case, that was in Boisbriand, where Infrabec was winning around two-thirds of the municipal sewage contracts in the late 2000s.

Zambito also detailed some of his ties to municipal politicians in the town, admitting he paid for elected officials to attend a fundraiser in November 2006 in support of thendeputy premier Nathalie Normandeau. The event was organized by Groupe Roche, an engineering consulting firm. Tickets were $1,000 apiece.

Zambito said he understood Roche had “obligations” to the Liberals in terms of the amount of money they were expected to raise that night.

“So we’re to understand that these were municipal officials who were attending a fundraiser for a provincial party, and you’re telling us that it was you who paid?” asked commission lawyer Denis Gallant.

“That’s right,” Zambito replied, adding that it was “the custom” at the time for municipal politicians attending fundraisers for any provincial party—the ADQ and the Parti Québécois included — to have their tickets paid for by an engineering firm, a legal firm, or an entrepreneur in construction. The firms would also treat those politicians to golf tournaments and cocktail parties, he said.

At another fundraiser for Normandeau in late 2008, Zambito testified that engineer Michel Lalonde of Groupe Séguin paid $5,000 for a ticket for Charlemagne mayor Normand Grenier, plus an additional $5,000 for his own ticket.

The individual contribution limit to political parties at the time was $3,000 per year.