Couillard satisfied with Charbonneau report
Premier Philippe Couillard applauded Justice France Charbonneau’s work on Tuesday saying it has freed provincial politicians from getting involved in fundraising.
“I think all the political parties now have been liberated. I would use that term. We’ve been freed from fundraising,” the premier told reporters, about two hours after Charbonneau tabled her report into collusion and corruption in Quebec’s construction industry.
Under former Liberal premier Jean Charest, for example, the commission learned ministers had to raise $100,000 a year to fill party coffers.
But the Charbonneau Commission was unable to make a direct link between party fundraising and favouritism in the awarding of public contracts to construction and engineering firms.
What’s more, commissioner Renaud Lachance said in the final report that he disagrees with Charbonneau that there is an indirect link.
As soon as the report was tabled on Tuesday, Liberal House Leader Jean-Marc Fournier pointed to page 707 where Lachance expresses dissent.
“I think it is important to specify that I disagree with the content of this chapter, and consequently, with the portrait that is being drawn of the stratagems and associated facts,” Renaud wrote.
“The facts presented before the commission did not show a link, direct or indirect, between political contributions at the provincial level and the awarding of public contracts.”
Charbonneau concluded in her report that the spirit of Quebec’s Election Act had been violated, since, among other things, companies testified they used their employees as “strawmen” to donate large sums to political parties, in the hopes of receiving some advantage in return, a minister’s ear for example. “In this type of system,” Charbonneau wrote, “businesses donate to political parties, not to obtain specific contracts, but to obtain or preserve a share of the market in general.”
Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault apologized during Question Period on behalf of the defunct Action démocratique du Québec for the way it collected political donations — even though the party was not blamed in the report — and urged the premier to do the same. Couillard did not apologize. It made a visibly angry Amir Khadir from Québec solidaire literally jump from his seat. He claimed that Treasury Board president Martin Coiteux participated in a Liberal party fundraising activity last April where the admission fee was $100. “In 2015, the Liberal Party still uses ministers as levers to raise funds for the party,” Khadir later charged, after nearly getting expelled from the National Assembly’s Blue Room. Speaker Jacques Chagnon said the accusation had “no basis.”
Khadir said the Liberals acted Tuesday as if they were going to pop open the champagne.
Ministers are not “vulnerable” as Justice Charbonneau suggested, argued Fournier, because their fundraising objective has been lowered to $15,000 a year and there are no consequences if they fail to meet that objective.
“They said there’s a vulnerability. That has been changed,” Fournier said.
PQ House Leader Bernard Drainville argued that apart from setting up the commission in 2011, the Liberals have not done much to fight corruption in the province. He said the PQ passed Bill 1 entrusting Quebec’s securities regulator to verify the integrity of companies vying for provincial contracts, Bill 2 capping party donations at $100 a year, and Bill 10 allowing a judge to order any mayor or councillor to be suspended with pay if they face a criminal charge which could lead to a sentence in a federal prison.
Drainville said the PQ proposed to also limit political party donations to $100 a year at the municipal level. “The bill was tabled, it’s written. Why don’t the Liberals adopt it?” he asked.
The Charbonneau Commission sent the government 60 recommendations, including better protection for whistleblowers, an independent authority to oversee public contracts and an independent committee within the Transport
I think all the political parties now have been liberated. I would use that term. We’ve been freed from fundraising.
Department.
“A lot has been done, a lot is being done and a lot more will be done in accordance with these recommendations. We will analyze each of them and follow through with each of them,” Couillard vowed.
The premier applauded Quebec’s “courage” and said he would like the level of vigilance to always remain high.
“In any province, if you did the same exercise, you would probably find similar events or similar impressions ... I don’t think the situation is going to be much different in other provinces. We had the courage to face it. It’s something we should put to our credit, us Quebecers. We faced it, we’re acting on it now and let’s move forward as a free and democratic society,” he said.