Paradis denies misuse of housing allowance
QUEBEC The National Assembly’s ethics commissioner has found former cabinet minister Pierre Paradis misused his housing allowance and recommends he be asked to repay almost $25,000.
But Paradis says he broke no rules and did not profit personally in any way.
In a report tabled in the legislature Tuesday, ethics commissioner Ariane Mignolet said Paradis favoured the interests of his daughter in an “abusive manner” by using his taxpayer-funded allowance to pay her rent and mortgage.
Mignolet, who is new to the role but has said she will be tougher on politicians than her predecessor, opened the investigation after receiving information about irregularities from the province’s anti-corruption unit (UPAC).
Mignolet concluded that between February 2009 and May 2012, Paradis, the former agriculture minister, rented an apartment on Aberdeen St. in Quebec City using his allowance to pay the rent of $1,435 a month.
Paradis’s daughter, her husband and their child lived at the address, but their names did not appear on the lease. They paid no rent. One room of the apartment was reserved for Paradis.
In March 2012, Paradis’s daughter and husband bought a condo on Avenue Bienville at which point Paradis signed a rental lease with them, agreeing to pay $1,300 a month. The lease did not include his daughter’s name.
No room was specifically reserved for Paradis, who bunked in the child’s room on occasion. The ethics commissioner concludes the rent Paradis was paying was “excessive and unreasonable” for what was really a shared space. She concluded the payment amounted to a full month’s mortgage payment for his daughter and her husband, thus giving them a financial advantage.
Mignolet concludes Paradis failed to display the “rectitude, wisdom, honesty and sincerity and justice” required of a person in public office in failing to reveal what she described as “irregular” arrangements.