UPAC strike leads to 388 tax-fraud charges
Revenue Quebec allegations involve construction trade businesses, individuals
Revenue Quebec has filed a total of 388 charges of tax fraud against several businesses and individuals operating in the construction trades, Quebec’s anti-corruption unit announced Thursday morning.
The firms singled out are CIV-BEC Inc., Bailourd Inc., Les Entreprises Defcon Inc. and a numbered company operating as Excavation et Transport Lacroix, the Unité permanente anti-corruption (UPAC) said in a detailed news release.
The alleged offences took place between 2007 and the end of 2010. Depending on the companies and individuals charged, the periods covered vary within that time span.
A total of 67 charges have been filed against CIV-BEC as a business and another 67 against its top executives, Pasquale Fedele and Jacques Lavoie, as individuals. The charges allege false declarations to provincial tax authorities and improper filings involving credits and refunds for the Quebec sales tax and the federal goods and services tax.
Patrick Alain, listed on a Quebec government website as corporate secretary of CIV-BEC, faces 63 charges.
Fedele, shown as CIV-BEC’s president, is a former vicepresident of Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc.
He already faces a slew of charges laid last May in connection with are development project on the city-owned Faubourg Contrecoeur site in east-end Montreal. The awarding of the Contrecoeur project to Catania & Associés was overseen by the city’s real estate agency, the Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM). Former Montreal executive committee chairman Frank Zampino and seven others were also rounded up and charged in connection with the ill-fated deal.
It’s not the first time CIVBEC has come under police scrutiny. Last June, the company’s offices were raided and Fedele, Lavoie and Alain were among 11 people arrested and briefly detained at the Sûreté du Québec headquarters in Montreal. That investigation pertained to an alleged bid-rigging ring covering about $20 million worth of municipal contracts in the South Shore communities of St-Jean-surRichelieu, Carignan, Lacolle and Henryville.
The trio of CIV-BEC executives were released the same day on promises to appear in court.
“This investigation let us establish that a system of collusion, breach of trust and corruption has been ongoing since 2007 concerning diverse infrastructure work in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and certain cities around it,” Sûreté du Québec Chief Inspector François Roux told reporters the day of the June raids.
Roux estimated that investigation had uncovered more than $1 million of fraud against taxpayers.
The UPAC release issued Thursday alleged the other companies and their executives named in addition to CIVBEC had co-operated in an alleged false-billing scheme that had the effect of cutting CIV-BEC’s tax liabilities.
The fines sought in connection with the 388 charges total just over $2 million, the release added.