FIGHTING CORRUPTION
Construction body does its part
In 2011, Quebec’s Charbonneau Commission began dredging up layers of corruption and collusion in the construction industry as witness after witness took the stand with stories involving organized crime, some of the biggest companies in the province and elected officials that included former Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay and his interim replacement, Michael Applebaum.
To regain the trust of workers and the public, Quebec’s construction association is launching an integrity program designed both to give transparency to companies’ activities and educate employees about what is considered to be ethical behaviour.
“Some of our members started to say, ‘Look, I have integrity. Can the association do something to demonstrate that I follow good practices and that I respect the law?’, said Manon Bertrand, president of the L’Association de la construction du Québec (ACQ).
“Our members are proud of their integrity and want to be able to show it.”
The Charbonneau Commission wrapped up its public hearings in November 2014. It is set to deliver its final report in November of this year.
The ACQ says it was inspired in part by the Bavarian construction industry federation’s integrity program, which was put in place after a series of corruption scandals in the 1990s, and wanted to create its own program for its 17,000 member companies.
Bertrand says that unlike the German model, which was designed only for the country’s biggest companies, the Quebec initiative can be applied to small businesses, which represent about 80 per cent of the province’s enterprises.
Companies will do employee training and adopt a code of conduct, with penalties for those who do not follow the directives.
They will be able to appoint an integrity officer to oversee implementation of the platform, and are expected to maintain a register of gifts, donations and requests given or received.
So far, six companies — ranging in size from a 10-employee shop to an enterprise of over 500 — have participated in the pilot project, which began in the spring of 2014.
Jean Pouliot, president of the 94-employee Produits métalliques PMI, said he learned during the pilot project that employees most at risk are those who interact with suppliers, buyers and other people outside the company because they deal with everything from potential bribes to simple displays of gratitude from longtime contacts.
“You can’t refuse all the gratitude of all the suppliers. Can you go with them to see the Montreal Canadiens? Before you accept, you can see the integrity officer and ask,” said Pouliot. “With this training, he or she knows what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. In the event that a situation comes up, there is a person who can be consulted that is not the boss.”
From a company standpoint, Pouliot said he is seeing more and more clients ask whether companies have an ethics program in place during calls for tender, which he said shows an increase in demand for initiatives like the integrity program.
Pouliot said that in spite of the many stories that have emerged about corruption in Quebec’s construction sector, he thinks overall most people in the industry are honest, but have been given a bad reputation by some well-publicized incidents.
“We try to put in place measures before they happen. We don’t want to correct a situation — we want to prevent it,” he said. “It’s not punitive, it’s proactive.”
Bertrand — who is also participating in the pilot project as the owner of a construction company that specializes in concrete sawing and drilling — jokes that she was proud to hear one of her employees even reported a jar of homemade spaghetti sauce he received from a client after finishing a residential job. “Most employees don’t have the taste for doing shady business,” she said. “At the same time, it showed me that the employee did a good job at the place.”
Bertrand said the program should officially be launched by early 2016.