Limited number of plumbing firms authorized for prep work
Were authorized by Quebec’s professional order of plumbers to share in $100 million of work. Ten of those firms belonged to people who are, or have been, at the helm of the order
Three plumbing experts said the prices set by BPR and approved by the city
executive committee were at least double what should have been charged.
The Montreal region boasts 1,462 licensed plumbing firms, but only 42 — at the peak — were allowed to share $100 million worth of plumbing work offered by the city of Montreal before its water-meter project sank four years ago.
And a Gazette examination has found that 10 of the firms approved by Quebec’s professional order of plumbers to do the preparatory work for Montreal’s water-meter project belonged to people who are, or have been, at the helm of the order.
In 2008, the city mandated the Corporation des maîtres mécaniciens en tuyauterie du Québec ( CMMTQ) to train and authorize the firms that could work on the watermeter project under the guidance of the consortium Génieau, which had just won a $356-million municipal contract to manage the work.
The water-meter project and the city’s $100-million grant program to pay for all the plumbing prep work later fell apart with the cancellation of the Génieau contract amid irregularities in 2009, but not before a system had been set up and Montreal taxpayers had paid $1 million through the first 585 grants for the prep work.
Executives of the CMMTQ, including past presidents, vice-presidents and regional directors, operated nine of the firms that the order accredited. The president of a tenth authorized firm has been described in a CMMTQ newsletter as “an involved member of the Corporation for several years.”
The CMMTQ licenses plumbers in the province on behalf of the Régie du bâtiment du Québec.
Two other approved plumbing firms were tied to one of the owners of Génieau. Businessman Antonio Accurso, whose construction firm at the time was one of the two partners in Génieau, owned two companies on the list: Gastier Inc. and Charles Bélanger et Fils Ltée.
The CMMTQ and the plumbers in question contend the links to the professional order’s executive are a coincidence. The invitation to take training courses offered by the order to qualify to work on the city’s watermeter project was open to all licensed plumbers, they say.
CMMTQ general director André Bergeron said it’s not surprising that members of the executive had companies that did the work, because the order’s board is comprised of 26 people who are active in the field.
The CMMTQ’s involvement in the city’s watermeter project was only to provide training to install backflow prevention devices as part of the prep work, he said. The order wanted the city to use the opportunity to retrofit buildings with the devices, Bergeron said.
“So the link between the city and the CMMTQ is strictly for training,” he said. “It’s our only link to the contract.”
The order didn’t even know which plumbing firms got the work, Bergeron said.
As The Gazette reported Tuesday, the grant program carried on silently for months after the Génieau contract was suspended — and even after it was cancelled.
The city bypassed the normal legal requirements — launching a public call for tenders and awarding a contract to the lowest bidder when it offers work worth more than $100,000 — by setting up the installation of 30,500 meters in industrial, commercial and institu- tional buildings as an arms’ length project outsourced to Génieau under its rich contract in 2007.
By setting up the $100-million grant program, the city also avoided going to tenders to hire the plumbing firms since it was the building owners who phoned a plumber from the list of pre-approved firms. The city then reimbursed the owners for their plumbing costs.
Yet the plumbing prices were also indirectly controlled by the city.
The city and one of its contractors, engineering firm BPR, pre-determined what the plumbing firms were allowed to charge for the prep work.
The grants to pay for the work ranged from $545 to $14,102, with the average at $1,667. Three plumbing experts contacted by The Gazette said the prices set by BPR and approved by the city executive committee were at least double what should have been charged.
The list of authorized plumbing firms grew throughout 2009. The longest list The Gazette could find, posted on Génieau’s website in September 2009, had 42 firms, some from as far away as Valleyfield and L’Épiphanie. Some months earlier, in April 2009, the list contained 37 names.
However, none of the building owners contacted by The Gazette said they received a list with that many choices. One owner said he had seven firms to choose from. Another said 26.
Meanwhile, three of the plumbing firms that the CM- MTQ authorized to do the prep work were also among the first to obtain city grants to receive the prep work on their own buildings.
Their addresses are on a list of 585 grants awarded by the city that was obtained by The Gazette.
The list also includes the offices of some city contractors that were involved in the water-meter project.
For example, a grant was issued to the owner of a Sherbrooke St. E. building where BPR was a tenant.
BPR did not return The Gazette’s calls.
A city grant for plumbing prep work was also issued to a company that won the city contract to supply the back- flow prevention devices to be installed by the plumbers as part of the prep work.
Deschênes et Fils owns one building and rents in another on the list of 585 city grants.
The man who owned Charles Bélanger et Fils before the water-meter project began also got grants for plumbing prep work in buildings he owned.
The CMMTQ’s Bergeron said he wasn’t surprised to hear that plumbing firms and supply fir ms were among the first recipients of the plumbing prep work and meters. “If I was a plumber and I had a building affected, I would have got it done right away because it was going to have to be done anyway.”
However, Bergeron said the CMMTQ can’t offer an opinion on the prices that the city instructed the plumbers to charge.
Alain Daigle, a past president of the CMMTQ, called the number of companies tied to CMMTQ directors “pure coincidence.”
He owns one of the plumbing firms that was on the list of companies that could do the prep work.
“I’d be frigging stupid not to get into it,” Daigle said of the city’s make-work project for the plumbing industry. “They’re handing me work. Why would I reject the offer? So we put our name in.”
In the end, his company only got four or five jobs before the program was scrapped, he said.
The city’s water-meter project was hardly a boon for plumbers, said Jean Charbonneau, a past president of the CMMTQ whose fir m, Plomberie Charbonneau Inc., was on the list of firms allowed to do the prep work.
He and the owners of another firm that was on the list of approved plumbers partnered to set up a third company that got on the list. The firm had a plumbing license only from November 2008 to November 2009.
“We knew we were going to have five years of work,” Charbonneau said.
However, he added he lost $250,000 in setting up the third firm after the city cancelled the Génieau contract and put an end to the grant program.
The plumbers and CMMTQ officials contacted by The Gazette said they didn’t know if the city or Génieau automatically put every plumbing firm that passed the CMMTQ training courses on the list of firms that could do the prep work.
The city refused to answer questions about the watermeter project, saying it’s “dead and buried.”
Génieau has since dissolved.