No amnesty for corrupt firms, Quebec insists
MONTreAL • The Quebec government insists it won’t offer amnesty to companies that have admitted past involvement in corruption, saying it is aware its decision to ban such firms from public work contracts could result in some of them going under.
“We won’t let bygones be bygones. There will be no amnesty,” said Jean-François Lisée, the Parti Québécois minister responsible f or Montreal. “Some companies will succeed in reforming themselves and proving to the [Authorité des Marchés Financiers] that they’ve transformed. Some companies will die and be replaced by healthier young firms.”
Quebec last year passed a law forcing any company that wants to win public contracts in Quebec to meet an integrity test and obtain an ethics certificate from AMF, the province’s securities regulator, before it can do business with government bodies. The legislation was implemented following a long-running concern by lawmakers over corruption and collusion in Quebec’s construction industry.
Last week, privately held dessau, one of Canada’s largest engineering firms and a major player in Quebec, confirmed it has been banned for a five-year period and warned of “significant repercussions” to its business as a result. Three-quarters of its revenue comes from Quebec public work contracts.
The company has since laid off roughly 100 of its 5,000 employees and observers expect more layoffs to come as current projects run their course. It is appealing the decision.
Frédéric Sauriol, a dessau employee whose cousin JeanPierre Sauriol, resigned this month as chief executive in an attempt to shield the company from a ban, wrote an open letter this week to Premier Pauline Marois warning that dessau would soon have trouble paying its employees and that its survival was in play. In the plea, he argued that the company’s rank-andfile employees shouldn’t be made to pay for the actions of top management.
“This is a cry from the heart,” Mr. Sauriol wrote, wondering how dessau would be able to pay back the sums cheated from taxpayers if it goes bankrupt. “And what income will the government generate from all the new employment insurance claimants” this decision will create, he added rhetorically.
The letter strikes right to the heart of the government’s dilemma in introducing the legislation: How to mete out sufficient punishment that will satisfy the public while not crippling companies that employ thousands of people and pay millions in taxes.
Mr. Lisée said it’s regrettable people who didn’t do anything wrong are being affected by the actions of a few but that the government’s fight against corruption is essential.
Jean-Pierre Sauriol’s brother rosaire, also a former des- sau executive, told Quebec’s Charbonneau inquiry into corruption in the construction industry that he participated in collusion and illegal party financing. In exchange, the company won often-lucrative public contracts.
There’s a real danger that Quebec goes too far in its punishment, university of Montreal economist Claude Montmarquette said in an interview with the National Post last week.
“We need to attack the people who are corrupt, not the companies they represent,” he said. “When they find price-fixing in the chocolate industry, you don’t close Hershey’s.”