Dumont recalled to testify at inquiry
One of the most controversial witnesses to appear before the Charbonneau Inquiry into corruption in the construction industry has been recalled to testify when the commission resumes hearings on Monday.
The witness list has been a closely guarded secret since the commission began its hearings in June, but on Friday, the commission’s website took the unusual step of posting the names of three witnesses expected to testify Monday: Alexandra Pion, Martin Dumont and Isabelle Toupin.
Dumont, a former staffer with former mayor Gérald Tremblay’s Union Montreal party, was the first witness at the commission to claim that Tremblay knew anything about illegal political party financing. His testimony on Oct. 30 was among the elements widely seen to have provoked Tremblay’s resignation less than a week later.
Dumont told the commission Tremblay was present at a 2004 meeting where Marc Deschamps, then the party’s official agent, said the party had two different budgets for an upcoming byelection, one “official” and the other “unofficial.”
Dumont said Tremblay left the meeting at the mention of suspicious cash payments and bogus budgets, saying “I don’t need to know this.”
Dumont also testified a former receptionist for the party, Alexandra Pion, had told him in 2005 that she had been asked by Bernard Trépanier, Union Montreal’s chief financial officer, to count $850,000 in cash, by hand.
Pion is one of the three witnesses scheduled to appear at the hearings on Monday.
The third is Isabelle Toupin, a supervising sergeant with the Sûreté du Québec.