UPAC closes Dauphin investigation
Insufficient evidence for charges against former Lachine mayor
Quebec’s anti-corruption squad has closed its file on former Lachine borough mayor Claude Dauphin and won’t be laying charges, a police investigator and the Crown have confirmed to his lawyer. “I confirm that the criminal investigation of abuse of trust called ‘Fronde’ file 066-090622-002 and that concerns your client Claude Dauphin is definitively closed,” says a one-sentence email message from Jean-Michel Masse, a Sûreté du Québec investigator, on Oct. 31. The message ends three years of uncertainty for Dauphin, who lost his seat in the November 2017 municipal election after four consecutive terms as a Montreal city councillor and borough mayor. At the same time, it raises questions about when the long-running Fronde, an investigation of Montreal municipal politics that turns 10 years old in the spring, will end — and whether it will be with a bang or a thud. The Crown declared late last year that another former councillor, Francine Senécal, will not be charged because of insufficient evidence in the Fronde case.
I said I have nothing to be bothered about because I did nothing wrong. But it caused a lot of damage, politically.
So Dauphin is now at least the second former high-ranking member of Union Montreal, the party of former mayor Gérald Tremblay, to be told the investigation against him has been closed without criminal charges. Union Montreal held power at city hall for more than a decade. UPAC, like other Quebec police forces, refuses to comment to the media on its investigations. Dauphin, who shared the investigator’s message to his lawyer with the Montreal Gazette, said he’s aware the police are continuing the Fronde investigation of an unknown number of individuals. However, he said he won’t make any more comments about the matter to avoid harming the investigation. Fronde began in 2009 as a probe of Montreal’s $356-million water-management contract, awarded and later cancelled by the Tremblay administration. The police later broadened their investigation to include political financing of Union Montreal using a system of phoney billing, allocation of municipal contracts and use of an existing system of collusion to obtain financing for the city to stage the FINA Aquatics Championships in 2005. UPAC investigators arrived at Dauphin’s Lachine home with a search warrant on July 22, 2015. Lachine’s borough hall on St-Joseph Boulevard also was searched that day, as were the homes of three other councillors who, like Dauphin, had been members of the city executive committee under Tremblay. In fact, UPAC investigators have conducted dozens of raids as part of the Fronde investigation. Tremblay’s Outremont home and his summer residence also were searched in 2015. Police have made arrests in only one branch of the Fronde investigation. In September 2017, UPAC arrested former executive committee chairman Frank Zampino, former party fundraiser Bernard Trépanier, who has since died, former Montreal public works director Robert Marcil and five former executives of engineering firms. They face charges of municipal corruption, fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud, in connection with the awarding of consulting contracts by the city. The affidavits the police used to obtain many of the search warrants in Fronde have been made public. UPAC’s allegations against Dauphin in the affidavits concerned the period between May 2007 and September 2009. Dauphin succeeded Zampino as chairman of the executive committee during this period after Zampino left politics in 2008. The affidavits alleged that Dauphin received gifts from contractors, including a hotel stay and six bottles of wine from construction entrepreneur Paolo Catania and tickets to events at the Bell Centre. One of the informants cited in the affidavits was Rosaire Sauriol, a former executive with the Dessau engineering firm. Fronde was frequently mentioned during the two-year Contrecoeur fraud trial, in which the accused included Zampino and Catania and which resulted from a parallel investigation. The Contrecoeur trial ended with acquittals of all of the accused on all charges in May, with Court of Quebec Judge Yvan Poulin declaring there was insufficient evidence to prove the Crown’s charges of fraud, conspiracy and breach of trust in the 2007 land sale. He also agreed with Zampino’s defence that trips and exchanges of gifts such as bottles of wine between politicians and contractors were part of the political “mores” at the time, even if they’re no longer acceptable in the post-Charbonneau commission era. In June, a month after the Contrecoeur acquittals, the Crown decided not to file criminal charges against Dauphin because of insufficient evidence. Dauphin’s lawyer, Guy Pinsonnault, said a prosecutor told him as much in the summer. The Crown then relayed its decision to UPAC in August, and UPAC did not contest the Crown’s decision, Pinsonnault said. Dauphin’s lawyers had provided affidavits to the Crown concerning the evidence against Dauphin, Pinsonnault added. “We provided some information to the Crown that they were not aware of,” he said. “We also provided legal arguments that there was insufficient evidence to lay charges.” Pinsonnault said he had a verbal confirmation from the Crown that no charges will be laid, but asked for the written confirmation as well. Dauphin, 64, said investigators have returned the items they seized during their searches, including a five-year-old Christmas card he got from Dessau and a photo that was taken of him with a former executive director of the Société de transport de Montréal and others during a business trip in Algeria while Dauphin was chairman of the STM. Dauphin said he’s happy with the decision to close the case against him, but added it comes a year too late for him to salvage his reputation and political career. “After so many years, I would have loved to have had that last year before the election,” he said in Lachine last week. “I said I have nothing to be bothered about because I did nothing wrong. But it caused a lot of damage, politically speaking.” He added that he has no plans to run for office again. “Probably not,” Dauphin said. “You never say never.”