Snuffing out corruption is a work in progress
In the last few years, Quebec has enacted a flurry of new measures aimed at snuffing out corruption in the awarding of provincial and municipal contracts.
Among those, Quebec has put the Autorité des marchés financiers in charge of vetting companies for their eligibility to bid on public contracts. It has forbidden firms whose shareholders have been convicted of financial crimes from being awarded work. It has reformed rules governing big unions, and reduced the maximum allowable political donation for provincial and municipal parties. It has also empowered an inspector general to monitor the contract process at Montreal city hall.
In parallel to these measures, Quebec’s anticorruption police squad has conducted numerous investigations that have resulted in arrests. And the Charbonneau Commission is continuing to expose the system of collusion between companies in the construction sector and public officials that is at the heart of the morass.
But in spite of this paroxysm of regulation and oversight — or perhaps because of it — new examples of suspect behaviour periodically arise.
Case in point: an investigation by The Gazette found that 33 supposedly independent construction firms that compete against each other for work in Montreal can be traced to just 11 addresses. Coincidence? That’s what some of the contractors say. But it’s a red flag, at the very least, for anti-corruption watchdogs that merits closer scrutiny.
One among many conditions that can facilitate collusion is “proximity” — be it in terms of physical location, corporate ownership, equipment sharing or family ties. Broadly speaking, collusion results in the price of public contracts being inflated, or the quality of work compromised, when competitors collaborate to divide the proceeds, or take turns placing the lowest bid. Such schemes are often orchestrated by organized crime.
In Quebec, examples of collusion have been revealed as a result of investigative journalism, the work of the Charbonneau commission, and of police and the courts.
Quebec has done good work in the past two years investigating allegations of corruption and laying the groundwork for reforms. Constant vigilance is required, however, to monitor new practices designed to circumvent reforms and to improve the vetting process for public tendering.
A Gazette article published Saturday compared the vetting mechanism in New York City with the new process being introduced in Quebec municipalities, and found tighter controls south of the border. For example, New York has a database that screens past addresses of bidders going back a decade. New York also collects more comprehensive information from potential bidders.
The speed and scope of reforms in Quebec means the vetting process here is still a work in progress, hence there is an ongoing need to keep looking at best practices elsewhere.
In Quebec, there is also a delicate balan- cing act between the need for urgent repairs to crumbling infrastructure on the one hand and implementing the new requirement of having the AMF thoroughly vet the companies doing the work on the other.
Cities have complained about projects being delayed because vetting takes so long. As a result, the new Liberal government has slightly watered down the legal power of Montreal’s new inspector general to cancel suspicious contracts, instituting a 90-day suspension period first — and giving city council a veto over cancellations.
What’s more, Quebec has been slow to put in place internationally recognized corruption controls endorsed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. These include opening the highly protectionist Quebec construction market to out-ofprovince and international bidding competition, and increasing the transparency of the tendering process.
Much important work has been done, but the job of rooting out corruption is far from over.