Quebec anti-corruption police note proliferation of small-scale schemes

Quebec’s anti-corruption police force says although the scandals that defined the province’s construction industry in the last decade have subsided, corrupt activities have sprouted on a smaller scale in other sectors.

Anti-corruption commissioner Frédérick Gaudreau presented the force’s five-year report in Quebec City Tuesday, noting criminal proceedings against 259 people and 57 convictions since 2018.

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Many of those legal proceedings are ongoing, and 17 of the 57 convictions stemmed from charges filed before 2018, when the anti-corruption unit known as UPAC became a full-fledged police force.

Only 44 out of the 259 cases have gone through the entire judicial process in the last five years, and 40 of them resulted in convictions.

Instead of large-scale conspiracies, Gaudreau said the force is now seeing smaller, covert corruption schemes.

He noted cases at the municipal level, in school administrations and in the health-care sector.

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