Couillard prepared to wage election battle on ethics
Says none of his elected members were questioned in raid on Liberal Party offices
QUEBEC — Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard said Tuesday he is ready for an election campaign on the issues of ethics and corruption.
The question was asked after it came to light that UPAC, Quebec’s permanent anti-corruption unit, quietly raided Quebec Liberal Party headquarters in Montreal in early July.
Drawing a line between his leadership and the party’s past, Couillard said those in charge of party fundraising before he became leader last March have been replaced and that the new party-financing law, which has reduced to maximum donation to $100 a year per voter, is “much more healthy.”
“We have made a complete change of our direction at the management of the party,” Couillard told reporters, adding that he is changing the party’s governance approach and a committee, headed by Marguerite-Bourgeoys MNA and former police officer Robert Poëti, is drawing up a Liberal code of ethics.
Until last year, the maximum political donation was $3,000. But then, as now, only individuals — not organizations — were permitted to make political contributions, and the money must be their own.
In recent months, Elections Québec has uncovered cases where companies funnelled donations into provincial party coffers in the names of their employees. In one case, a company receptionist contributed the maximum $3,000 to the Liberal party. She later admitted that her employer reimbursed her.
It is illegal for a company to reimburse individuals’ party contributions.
Commenting on the July raid, which he did not disclose to all the Liberal MNAs at the time, Couillard said none of his MNAs were questioned and he does not know whom the raids targeted.
“Not only I don’t know, but I don’t want to know,” Couillard said.
“I don’t want to get involved in police investigations.”
Asked why he did not disclose the raid, Couillard said he knew it would eventually become public, but said, switching to English, it was a case of “damned if you do, damned it you don’t.”
Radio-Canada’s investigative program Enquête got wind of the raid and reported on it Monday night, on the eve of the fall sitting of the assembly. The network is asking Quebec Superior Court to make information about the search warrant public.
Couillard’s Liberals had been gaining momentum in recent days for opposing the Parti Québécois government’s proposed ban on wearing religious signs. But news of the raid, plus the revelation by the Coalition Avenir Québec of a questionable letter signed by Robert-Baldwin MNA Pierre Marsan, put the Liberals off-stride Tuesday.
A media report revealed that the letter, addressed to a West Island Jewish association, was soliciting political donations.
Couillard described Marsan’s letter as “unacceptable.”
Gérard Deltell, the CAQ house leader, called the letter “scandalous” and reminiscent of allegations that when they were last in power Liberal ministers sought contributions in return for private subsidized daycare permits.
Marsan rose in the Assembly to apologize, saying the let- ter, addressed to the Association Sépharade de la Banlieue Ouest de Montréal, in Dollarddes-Ormeaux, was “unjustified and inappropriate.”
But Jacques Drouin, Quebec’s chief electoral officer, issued a statement saying Elections Quebec is verifying whether the letter violates Quebec’s electoral financing laws, because it was addressed to an association, not to voters.
CAQ Leader François Legault said Marsan’s letter demonstrates that “nothing has changed in the Liberal party, in spite of the Charbonneau Commission.”
And Legault expressed surprise that in spite of Couillard’s pledge to make the Liberal party more transparent, “he didn’t even inform his caucus there was a raid at the Quebec Liberal Party.”
Legault also criticized Couillard for saying he did not know and did not want to know if any of his members were implicated in the UPAC investigation.
“I think we have heard that before,” the CAQ leader said.
“If I was the leader of a party where there was a raid, I would want to know for myself what happened and to have all the details of what happened, even if it was before I became leader of the Liberal party.”