Raking Influential Friends

Politicians do strange things. Not so strange, perhaps. The imperative is to cover their back-ends. And to do that sometimes they are forced to do what they really don't want to, but have little choice otherwise. Establish an oversight commission, for example, to ensure that government agencies don't succumb to corruption.

Bring in another agent to act alongside that commission,to delve deep into the problem and produce a paper that might resolve the issue.

Quebec is a province that appears to be particularly given to corruption opportunities. And a few investigative reporters have been burning the midnight oil for years revealing the various ways that government officials can be suborned by enterprising criminal groups who infiltrate the system.

That can be very embarrassing. Particularly in election years, when the public gets sick and tired of hearing about all the things that can go wrong, and do.

Particularly related to their heavy tax burden, made so partially because of increased costs laid on when the crime groups insist on getting their undue share of public spending for infrastructure, both new and remedial. All the more so when it is revealed that shoddy workmanship and inadequate materials have been used rendering the projects useless and in need of costly repair.

So the Charest government created a permanent anti-corruption unit and appointed a chairman, Robert Lafreniere, a past member of the Surete du quebec, and deputy minister of the province's public security department. The resulting anti-corruption unit, UPAC, created in February with a staff of 200 included police officers from the provincial, federal and municipal levels.

But then Jacques Duchesneau, formerly police chief of Montreal was discharged with the task of investigating corruption and collusion between organized crime and politicians they were successful in paying off. Mr.Duchesneau, in his formal capacity as investigator was critical of UPAC, believing that it was wrong to place a former police officer at the head of UPAC, stating so openly.

Mr. Duchesneau is now out of a job. The commissioner of UPAC, none other than Robert Lafreniere, whom Mr.Duchesneau had singled out, informed him that it would be "impossible" for him to continue in his appointed position.

And little wonder, the report leaked to the media where Mr. Duchesneau concluded that corruption was rife within Quebec's construction industry was rather definitive. "We uncovered a universe that was clandestine and well-rooted, of a surprising scope, harmful to society in terms of security and the economy, as for justice and democracy", wrote Mr. Duchesneau.

"People who were exasperated, even desperate, who needed support", revealed to Mr. Duchesneau the extent of the corruption in the industry, leading him to his conclusions, after interviewing 500 of them. Leading Premier Jean Charest to finally agree to public and political pressure to institute a public enquiry.

Perhaps another enquiry should get underway to determine how it was that a crew of 200 tasked to act as an anti-corruption unit was unable to come to grips with the situation, and a single individual instead was able to reach the required conclusion.

And for his pains was summarily dismissed.