A troubled department

During Jean Fortier’s time in office, alarming — even tragic — goings-on seemed to spring from the city of Montreal’s troubled economic and urban development department.

In June 1999, witnesses watched residential developer Robert Varin threaten a top city bureaucrat, Céline Topp, and two urban planners “using very violent words” on the steps of city hall, La Presse reported. The incident occurred at the end of a public hearing on a zoning change the businessman was seeking for a residential project in Plateau Mont-Royal.

In October of that year, Claude Forcier, the city’s recently hired director of economic and urban development, and executive committee member Saulie Zajdel announced the city was restructuring the department and transferring urban planners to different divisions where they would have less clout.

The city also folded the per-mits department into economic and urban development.

Topp, the two planners she was accompanied by on the steps of city hall in June and a fourth planner were removed from key positions in the move.

Opposition councillors publicly accused the administration of then-mayor Pierre Bourque of purging the urban planners because of Varin’s complaints.

Forcier abruptly gave his notice to the city in November, saying he had been hired under false pretenses, Fortier said. He added he’s not sure what Forcier meant by those words.

Then, the following April, Forcier disappeared a week before leaving the city’s employ.

Forcier was to start a job with the Cirque du Soleil that month. With a week to go, he went on vacation alone in the Dominican Republic.

He went diving — at night — for the first time in years, and disappeared. He is presumed drowned.

Hotels in the Dominican Republic don’t allow guests to dive at night, much less anyone without advanced certification.

Forcier’s body was never recovered.