Tremblay’s presence no big deal, Dumont tells commission
The presence of Montreal’s mayor at a meeting where the illegal financing of his party was said to have been discussed barely registered with the man who says he saw the whole thing unfold.
“Banal” was the word Martin Dumont used Thursday at the Charbonneau Commission to describe Gérald Tremblay’s attendance of the meeting, which Dumont says was held during a municipal by-election campaign in 2004. It was so forgettable, in fact, that the first time the former party staffer met with Charbonneau Commission investigators in early September, he forgot to mention that Tremblay was even there.
It wasn’t until the second time Dumont was called in to speak to inquiry officials (who do several pre-interviews with each witness before they eventually take the stand) that he informed them Tremblay was in the room when, it is alleged, Dumont was shown two Union Montreal budgets for the byelection campaign — one “official” and one “unofficial.”
Dumont testified in late October that Tremblay quickly got up and left the room when he saw the documents, saying: “I don’t need to know this.”
Thursday, Dumont said between the first and second pre-interviews last fall he “did some research” into the fundraising activities around that time, and only then did he remember seeing Tremblay at the meeting. He considered those pre-interviews to be “an evolution,” Dumont added, with more information being teased out in each one, so that when he finally took the stand the commission’s l awyers would know the right questions to ask.
“For me, what was banal was the presence of the mayor,” Dumont explained. “What I retained was the double-bookkeeping. … I imagined (Tremblay) was already aware of the doublebook keeping.”
His responses seemed to baffle Justice France Charbonneau, who couldn’t seem to understand how Dumont could initially overlook such an important and potentially damaging detail.
While he seemed to play down the mayor’s presence Thursday, Dumont’s recounting of the story on the stand in October had a pro- found effect on Montreal’s political scene. Just days later, on Nov. 5, Tremblay would step down and eventually be replaced by current Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum.
Thursday’s revelations came during a tough round of cross-examination by Union Montreal lawyer Michel Dorval, who questioned Dumont for nearly two hours.
Dorval took full advantage of the opportunity to poke holes in the witness’s claims, focusing heavily on the details. For instance, did Dumont know for certain why a safe in the party’s Montreal offices wouldn’t close, or did he just assume that it was because it was, as he described it, stuffed with cash?
Dumont clarified that he assumed over-stuffing was to blame because once some of the bills were removed, the safe shut properly. Dorval, however, had another explanation. Pulling out a receipt from a locksmith from that period (a receipt also unearthed by The Gazette this week), the lawyer explained that the safe’s door mechanism was actually broken.
Dumont’s credibility had already come under fire this week when he found himself at the centre of a controversy involving a story he told about a receptionist being asked to count $850,000 cash. That story was a lie, Dumont told investigators in a videotaped confession recorded in December. The commission has decided to ignore the confession, however, because Dumont’s lawyer was able to successfully argue that her client’s rights had not been respected when he was questioned. The legal battle over the matter delayed the cross-examination by several days.