Corruption nothing new
IT’S A CAMPAIGN ISSUE NOW, but history shows it’s always been on the political landscape — and not just in Quebec
Corruption is a hot campaign issue, one that has always been on the political landscape – and not only in Quebec.
Referring to corruption, Premier Jean Charest is reported to have said: “These are issues that have existed before this government and exist all over the world.” He might be onto something.
The constant talk of corruption leading up to September’s provincial election might give an outsider the impression that this lamentable phenomenon is something new on the Quebec — or for that matter, Canadian — political landscape. Nothing, however, could be farther from the truth. When one takes the time to look back, the problem appears to be, if not endemic, then at least cyclical.
For instance, a little over a hundred years ago, when the administration of the city of Montreal was passing through a particularly bleak period with regard to scandals of all sorts, the provincial government appointed a royal commission to investigate and make recommendations. The inquiry, known as the Cannon Commission, uprooted disturbing cases of bribery and wrongdoing at all levels of the city administration between 1902 and 1905. The 500-page report issued by Mr. Justice Cannon in December 1909 revealed that 25 per cent of public monies were wasted, mostly to the benefit of 23 particularly shady aldermen who were in political life exclusively for themselves and their friends.
Yet despite the report’s many recommendations, the situation was little different when Camillien Houde retired as mayor of Montreal in 1954, nearly half a century later. Although Houde was in many ways a populist and reform-minded mayor, under his watch the police department was riddled with corruption — all of which was exposed by corruption-fighting lawyer Pacifique Plante and an up-and-coming young lawyer named Jean Drapeau.
At the provincial level, anyone with a smattering of Canadian history from his or her high school years knows full well that the various administrations of Maurice Duplessis were riddled with fraudulent activities. Yet in the full circle that is so often politics, Duplessis had first been elected in 1936 as a reformer who promised to clean up the wicked ways of the Taschereau Liberals. By the end of its first mandate, in 1939, Premier Duplessis’s government was almost as bad as the previous regime.
Duplessis died in office in September 1959. Nine months later, the provincial Liberals were elected in a hard-fought race. Within a few months, the new premier, Jean Lesage, established the Salvas Royal Commission to inves- tigate the rampant corruption of the Duplessis years. Its final report, when made public in January 1963, was scathing in its indictment of the disreputable practices of the Union Nationale administrations from 1944 to 1960.
Fast forward to the 1976 Olympics and the scandals that forced the Quebec government to take over the unfinished site only seven months before the opening ceremonies. In July 1977, René Lévesque’s government appointed Judge Albert H. Malouf to investigate the questionable costs of Olympic facilities. Malouf filed his conclusions in June 1980, blaming Mayor Jean Drapeau – the same person who had fought corruption at the beginning of his career — for most of the disarray. While the mayor promised to respond to the judge’s accusations, he never did, although he had ample time. Drapeau died in 1999.
Also implicated in the affair was Drapeau’s right-hand man and chairman of city council’s executive committee, Gérard Niding. Niding eventually pleaded guilty to breach of trust and accepting a bribe for having issued untendered Olympic contracts in exchange for a home that was built for him in Bromont.
At the federal level, of course, there are many ex- amples of corrupt habits. The most infamous was perhaps (again, from our days taking high-school history) the Pacific Scandal that eventually forced the resignation of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald in November 1873. The scandal involved some big money, a little heavy-duty political bribing and the contentious issue of the building of a cross-country railway. despite the indignity of being caught up in a major impropriety, Macdonald triumphantly returned to power in 1878 and completed the railway to British Columbia.
More recently, the federal sponsorship scandal comes to mind. The Gomery Commission was assigned the task of tracking down $2 million to $3 million that had gone AWOL in federal spending in the period immediately following the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum. (The Gomery Commission itself, it should be noted, cost $14 million.)
The point is quite simple: while we should all unwaveringly fight corruption in government, we should at the same time recognize that dubious behaviour in political life is not an uncommon thing. In fact, it seems to have been a constant down through the years.