Atmosphere of suspicion chokes National Assembly
Accusations fly in all directions as head of anti-corruption unit to face questions
With a minister complaining of a form of harassment by one media outlet, the Liberals Wednesday fought back against allegations of misdeeds, saying the opposition has its own dubious past when it comes to fundraising.
But the opposition continued trying to connect Philippe Couillard’s regime to that of former leader Jean Charest, making a run at the government with fresh allegations that a Liberal fundraiser from the Charest years, Violette Trépanier, used her influence to bag government jobs for party friends.
Worse, she didn’t tell the truth about her activities when she testified at the 2011 Charbonneau commission into corruption and collusion, the Journal de Montréal reported Wednesday citing leaked emails.
Meanwhile, politicians of all stripes are girding for a public appearance by the head of Quebec’s anti-corruption unit, Robert Lafrenière, on Thursday.
Notoriously tight-lipped, Lafrenière will take questions at a legislature committee meeting in the afternoon. Politicians want to ask him about a series of highly damaging leaks from his agency, including news that Charest was under investigation.
And they will be prodding Lafrenière to give some indication of where the investigations are going, because the uncertainty is creating an unparalleled climate of suspicion, rancour and tension in the legislature.
On Wednesday, after two weeks of being hammered by an opposition fired up by revelations in Québecor-owned media like the Journal de Montréal, it’s clear Liberal patience is growing thin.
In an unorthodox outburst, Treasury Board President Pierre Moreau ripped into Québecor’s investigative bureau for a series of reports — particularly one last week suggesting Couillard’s chief of staff Jean-Louis Dufresne, Trépanier and former party fundraiser Marc Bibeau were able to influence the Charest government in 2011.
“In medicine, we call this therapeutic harassment,” a furious Moreau said. “That is to say, they are laying it on thick.
“This resembles concentrated fire, which has all the makings of a political stand against the party that is in government,” he said.
“Mr. Bourassa (the late premier) used to say, ‘When the opposition parties are weak, the newspapers take up the slack.’ ”
Last week, Moreau described the news item as “fallacious,” and shoddy journalism.
He said he granted the Journal de Montréal an interview to give his version, but they chose to not publish his comments, which he said debunked the story.
Wednesday, Moreau revealed a Journal de Montréal employee told him later privately he was sorry about the turn of events.
“When we do a botched job, as was done last week, and then we say privately we are sorry after having laid it on real thick, I think there’s an ethical problem,” Moreau said.
On Wednesday, Antoine Robitaille, bureau chief at the Journal de Montréal’s investigative unit, defended the work.
“We are not here to debate with politicians, but to investigate stories,” Robitaille said.
“We have some excellent ones. Go read them.”
Robitaille conceded Moreau’s response may have been left out of an early version of the story broadcast on the Québecor-owned TVA network, but it was there for the second, as well as being in the article published online and in the Journal de Montréal.
Still, the unflagging nature of the Québecor media reports have created suspicion in the Liberal ranks. Québecor is owned by former Parti Québécois leader Pierre Karl Péladeau, and many Liberals feel he is using his media to destabilize the government — in other words, be more of a pain to Couillard than when he was PQ leader.
Péladeau’s surprise decision to visit the Québecor bureau at the legislature’s press gallery last Friday also raised eyebrows. Le Soleil columnist Gilbert Lavoie wrote a Saturday column under the headline, “The return of PKP.”
Robitaille conceded in a column Monday that Péladeau’s visit was “inopportune,” coming at the end of a week where Québecor media rocked the government.
But Moreau was not done. He also heaped disdain on the Journal de Montréal’s latest scoop about Trépanier.
The paper Wednesday published a leaked series of emails from 2007-2008 that raise serious questions about what Trépanier told the Charbonneau commission in June 2014.
They reveal Trépanier checked the political alliances of potential candidates for government jobs when she said otherwise at the Charbonneau hearings.
She also said she didn’t call ministers on party matters when the emails show she had.
The opposition was all over the story.
“I am waiting for a reaction from the police, who must be asking themselves, ‘Do we open in investigation for perjury?’ ” Parti Québécois leader Jean-François Lisée told reporters at a news conference.
“How can Pierre Moreau blame journalists for asking questions of revealing stories of influence peddling?” Coalition Avenir Québec François Legault asked.
“It’s even surprising people in Quebec aren’t talking more about this. A former premier, Jean Charest, is under investigation by UPAC. This is no small matter.”
CAQ MNA Éric Caire called on the government to verify all the appointments made in the Charest-Trépanier period to see if people were given jobs because of their Liberal ties.
The opposition’s tack on the story is the same as last week.
They argue 31 Liberal MNAs — including 15 cabinet ministers — were in office when Trépanier was running the fundraising.
Those Liberal veterans have felt their ethics called into question in the last few weeks.
“I didn’t know,” International Affairs Minister Christine StPierre told reporters Wednesday in reaction to the Trépanier report. “Had I known, I would have told to her to mind her own business.”
The Liberals, however, said the opposition is not only asking the government to launch a kind of second Carbonneau commission, they want it to meddle in police investigations.
During question period, Couillard fought back, reminding Legault, a former PQ MNA, that he was in charge of PQ fundraising when the party indulged in similar tactics as those Trépanier is alleged to have dabbled in.
The PQ’s version of Trépanier was Ginette Boivin, who was in charge of PQ fundraising from 1989-2006. Boivin admitted before the Charbonneau commission she, too, had called minister’s offices to move someone’s file along.
“What does this show?” Couillard asked.
“It shows that in all political parties, almost all, there has been certain excesses in the role and responsibilities of this former political financing system.”
Referring to reforms slapping strict new rules on party fundraising, Couillard said: “We have all been freed from the previous system of financing parties. I repeat, all freed.”
But TVA reported late Wednesday that the Sûreté du Québec is considering investigating Trépanier for perjury.
In medicine, we call this therapeutic harassment. That is to say, they are laying it on thick.