MONTREAL – This is not the week to ask Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay if he’ll run for election again next year.
His slant on his political future has been the subject of speculation by pundits lately due to his uncharacteristic silence. Tremblay has only said that he’s still undecided, even though he declared his intentions three or more years in advance of each of his previous re-elections.
And with the arrests announced on Thursday of three former members of his political inner circle and six businessmen on allegations of fraud and breach of trust over a municipal land deal, a likely motive for his reserve has become clear.
The jig is up, as the expression goes.
After more than two years of police investigation, the trail of what were once only allegations of corruption leads through the front doors of Montreal city hall.
Assertions have become official criminal charges.
And what is perhaps more damaging to a mayoral career, albeit somewhat overlooked on the heels of the swoop-down by Quebec’s Unité permanente anticorruption on Thursday, is that the corruption charges bulldoze into the offices of Tremblay’s political party, Union Montreal.
The provincial anti-corruption squad, which carried out the arrests, fingered Tremblay’s former right-hand man, Frank Zampino, as the kingpin of what the squad charges was a plot to defraud the city’s real-estate agency, the Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM), of $1 million in the awarding of a $300-million contract to redevelop the city-owned Faubourg Contrecoeur site in east-end Montreal.
Zampino served as chairman of the all-powerful city executive committee through most of the first two of Tremblay’s three terms in office, including during the time the Contrecoeur deal was being assembled.
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Zampino also once chaired the fundraising campaign for Tremblay’s re-election in Union Montreal, previously called the Montreal Island Citizens Movement.
Martial Fillion, another former member of Tremblay’s entourage arrested on Thursday, was most recently the general manager of SHDM while the Faubourg Contrecoeur contract was awarded. He was fired over irregularities in 2008.
Fillion was program manager for the Montreal Island Citizens Movement on Tremblay’s 2001 election campaign. He then became Tremblay’s chief of staff at city hall before being selected by an outside firm to be general manager of the SHDM in 2002.
During this time, Fillion’s wife, Francine Senécal, was a member of the city executive committee. For a brief time, she was vice-chairman. She gave up her seat for personal reasons in 2009.
The third member of the troika arrested Thursday, Bernard Trépanier, was a fundraiser in Tremblay’s party.
The money trail also leads into Union Montreal.
Representatives of UPAC said at their news conference that an undisclosed amount of money was given to “a political party” as a payoff for fixing the Contrecoeur contract bids to allow construction firm Construction Frank Catania et associés inc. to win. The firm also faces charges along with the nine individuals.
A source close to the investigation told The Gazette the party in question is Union Montreal.
It’s hard to tell if the timing of the arrests was coincidental or deliberately timed to happen on the eve of the debut next week of the Charbonneau commission of inquiry into corruption in Quebec’s construction industry.
But Tremblay could not duck the public spotlight Thursday and avoid addressing the arrests. City council had called a special meeting to mark the 370th anniversary of the founding of Montreal to pass a motion declaring Jeanne Mance one of the city’s co-founders.
At the start of the meeting, Tremblay read a statement saying he would not comment because of the legal proceedings now launched. However, he told city council at one point that he’s been questioned by authorities “several times.”
The arrests within his entourage will change things for Tremblay and his party.
As of Thursday, it is no longer just a possibility that the mayor of Montreal will be called as a witness before the Charbonneau commission to answer questions about allusions and allegations.
As of Thursday, it is a foregone conclusion that he will be called to testify about what he knew about charges of corruption concerning former key members of his administration.
“He’ll have to explain how everyone around him is involved in corruption and he didn’t know,” a source familiar with the investigation told The Gazette.
It’s not the kind of publicity a political aspirant wants in the months before he would otherwise kick off his pre-election campaign.
Former Union Montreal councillor and executive committee member Benoit Labonté alleged during the 2009 municipal election campaign that Trépanier collected contributions from businesses that got city contracts.
Labonté also affirmed that he told Tremblay the allegations about “Bernard Trépanier 3%” – a reference to the cut he would take on contracts – in 2007.
Tremblay, meanwhile, acknowledged in the 2009 campaign that Labonté, who was now a political rival running for Vision Montreal party, spoke to him about Trépanier. But Tremblay said he made checks internally in his party at the time and found the rumours about Trépanier to be baseless.
The spotlight will fall on what checks Tremblay made before concluding the rumours were baseless.
This is not a good week to ask Tremblay if he’ll run for re-election next year. But, then, his detractors will argue that his answer should be obvious.
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