Charbonneau commission report was ‘sanitized,’ Péladeau says
The Charbonneau commission’s final report appears to have been sanitized before being made public, the leader of the Parti Québécois said Thursday.
On the same day as reports emerged that the commission intended to hit and hit hard, only to tone down its findings at the last minute, Pierre Karl Péladeau wondered out loud whether the commission got cold feet when faced with the prospect of legal challenges to its conclusions.
“I guess the word you are using, ‘sanitized,’ is probably not a bad word,” Péladeau told reporters as he arrived for a morning PQ caucus. “Was the commission being challenged (with lawsuits)?
“I don’t know if they were scared but they were certainly challenged by the fact this kind of situation may occur.”
Péladeau went further, saying he was alarmed to learn a list of unknown witnesses were interviewed by the commission’s lawyers behind closed doors and there was no chance for other lawyers to cross-examine them.
The names on the list aren’t known; nor what they said.
“It’s elementary procedure,” Péladeau said.
On Wednesday, reports emerged that buried within the hundreds of pages in the final version of the Charbonneau report were the rebuttals from groups and individuals the commission had warned in advance that they might be blamed.
Liberal Party lawyer Michel Décary, for example, warned in his rebuttal that “it’s essential to underline that the totality of witnesses heard by the commission confirm there was no link, direct or indirect, between the financing of the Liberal Party and the awarding of public contracts.”
In her final report, Justice France Charbonneau refers to an “indirect” link, but on the same page the second commissioner, Renaud Lachance, expresses his dissent, a split quickly seized upon by political parties as proof they were off the hook.
In the end, the final report blames nobody specifically for collusion and corruption in the construction industry.
But in the 200 warning notices sent by the commission, Quebec learns the commission initially considered blaming several persons and organizations: the Liberal Party of Quebec, the PQ, Union Montreal, former premier Pauline Marois, former Liberal cabinet ministers Line Beauchamp, Nathalie Normandeau, Liberal money man Marc Bibeau, SNC-Lavalin, former Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay and Bernard Trépanier (“Mr. 3 per cent”).
The commission was considering blaming the Liberals for having “closed its eyes” to certain fundraising practices, and the PQ, to a lesser degree, for having solicited funds from engineering and consulting firms.
News the commission changed gears — commission officials will not make themselves available to explain the flip — further stirred the political pot in Quebec City.
“It’s very clear Charbonneau changed its mind in the final stretch,” said Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault. “It thought about blaming people and changed its mind and chose to just analyze the system.”
Both Péladeau and Legault repeated they hope there will be a follow up to Charbonneau’s work and that regulatory bodies get the resources they need to patrol the province for signs of corruption and collusion.
In question period Thursday, Legault resumed his battle to have the government extend the current statute of limitations for electoral law violations from five to 20 years to try and track down individuals who indulged in corruption and collusion in the past in party fundraising.
He noted the Charbonneau commission established that the most significant amounts were collected by political parties between 2002 and 2008. He demanded to know if the Liberals plan to pay back their ill-gotten gains.
But repeating the government intends to respect the commission’s recommendation to extend the statute from five to seven years, Premier Philippe Couillard took a shot at Legault.
“I understand certain people are disappointed the report didn’t gratuitously sully the reputations of organizations and people but the reality is that the commission did its work professionally and I thank it.”