No pressure from party on Contrecoeur bid, committee members say

Two men who had roles with Union Montreal and who sat on the selection committee that chose the winning bidder in the Faubourg Contrecoeur deal say there was no pressure from the party to select one firm over another.

“No, not him or anyone else,” Marc Deschamps, the party’s treasurer while it was in power at city hall, testified in court Friday when asked if former Montreal city executive committee chairman Frank Zampino had tried to influence his decision.

Deschamps was one of four men on the selection committee that chose Construction Frank Catania et Associés as the winning firm in 2006. Another committee member, Mario Paul-Hus — a legal adviser to Union Montreal — gave the same answer when asked similar questions.

“Not at all,” Paul-Hus emphatically said from the witness stand.

Zampino and developer Paolo Catania — who headed Construction Frank Catania et Associés — are on trial for fraud and conspiracy charges related to the 2007 deal, along with the firm itself and four other former executives. The city-owned land known as Faubourg Contrecoeur sold to the company for $4.1 million even though its municipal assessment was $31 million.

Former Union Montreal party fundraiser Bernard Trépanier has also been charged but is being tried separately.

On Friday, Deschamps reiterated that in his opinion, Union Montreal had no interest in the outcome of the contract. Paul-Hus admitted that some aspects of the bidding documents struck him as a little off — there were legal aspects he felt could have been fleshed out more thoroughly — and that he was surprised to see such a big project moving forward when there were still zoning issues being discussed.

But, he added, he considered it important to move forward at the time given that he knew the need for the Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM), the city ’s real estate arm that sold the land, to develop new residential projects.

While testifying earlier, former Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay was asked if he was aware at the time that Deschamps and Paul-Hus were both working for his party and sitting on the selection committee that chose the winning bid for the Contrecoeur land. Tremblay said he only found out afterward.

Jean-François Bertrand, associate executive director of the SHDM and another member of the committee, has testified that he was subjected to “absolutely no pressure.”

The trial resumes Monday.