Why was Verdun among the boroughs visited by police officers from Montreal’s permanent anticorruption unit (UPAC) Tuesday, February 19? In addition to the headquarters of Union Montreal, 125 investigators invaded City Hall, Anjou, NDG/CDN, Lachine, St. Leonard and Saint-Laurent.
Between 15 and 20 police officers spent from 4 p.m. until almost 7 p.m. in Verdun. According to Verdun councillor Alain Tassé, officers were looking through bills, contracts and documents dating back to 2001, and particularly from 2004 and 2005. Information technology experts were among investigators. No one was evicted from the building while the search went on, but Verdun’s archives had to be unlocked and documents were confiscated.
UPAC statements says that the investigation into fraud, abuse of trust and falsifying documents began in 2010, but they haven’t yet made any arrests.
Late last week, journalists with the QMI agency reported that UPAC’s interest was a $100,000 contract completed by Groupe CJB during the 2001 election but paid through various boroughs in 2004. CJB is now known as Octane Strategies. On February 20, Pierre Guillot-Hurtubise, a principal partner in the firm, distributed a statement to the media in French. The statement says that the director generale of Quebec elections (DGEQ) had already looked into the case outlined by QMI. The DGEQ’s enquiry meant “the deployment of four investigators over 350 hours, and took place in 19 boroughs and 15 demerged cities, where they met 28 people. The conclusions of this investigation showed no facts to back up the DGEQ hypothesis.” The press release also goes on to say that services provided to Union Montreal in 2001 were public, and paid in full at the time.
Other guesses include the unusual number of construction contracts for Catcan. Verdun was among seven boroughs cited by Montreal’s auditor general in May 2010 because all 21 contracts that year went to Catcan, a company owned by Paulo Catania. Later investigations showed 80% of Verdun’s contracts going to Catcan between 2006 and 2009. Catania’s offices in Brossard were raided by UPAC in spring 2010 and again last spring.
