MONTREAL – Quebec’s election campaign has been jolted by a report that the province’s most famous anti-corruption whistleblower is preparing to enter the race.
There is a report that Jacques Duchesneau has agreed to run for the new Coalition for Quebec’s Future – a potentially ground-shifting development.
The new party, which is participating in its first election campaign, recently led opinion polls with its promise to shelve the independence debate and bring together Quebecers of federalist and separatist backgrounds to tackle other pressing issues.
But it recently slumped to third place and risked being sidelined in the news coverage in the first days of the campaign. Until Friday.
The party said it would not confirm or deny the report in the Globe and Mail that it had recruited Duchesneau, who played a pivotal role in prompting the current government to call a corruption inquiry.
“My candidates will all be announced by Tuesday,” said Coalition Leader Francois Legault, grinning broadly.
“I have nothing to announce today.”
He did salute Duchesneau’s “integrity.” An ex-Montreal police chief, Duchesneau had been hired by the Charest Liberals and he produced a report on illicit ties between construction companies, political parties and organized crime groups like the Mafia.
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That report was leaked to the media and created such a sensation last fall that after two years of refusing to call a public inquiry, Charest finally relented.
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Duchesneau made waves again in June when he revealed that he was the person who leaked the document. He testified at the inquiry that he gave it to a journalist because he was convinced the government wouldn’t do anything with it.
A former policeman, federal civil servant and mayoral candidate, Duchesneau has a history of public spats with several of professional colleagues, including the provincial government and Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay.
There was a quick example of the impact his candidacy would have on the race.
The Parti Quebecois held a news conference to introduce its economic team of candidates and the event was overshadowed by questions about another party’s supposed recruit.
PQ Leader Pauline Marois reacted warily to Duchesneau’s reported candidacy.
“I’d be a bit stunned because he said he would not be returning to politics,” citing Duchesneau, who had suggested his political career was over after a defeat in Montreal municipal politics.
If it happens, she said, she believes his candidacy would harm the Liberals and not her party: “I believe the Parti Quebecois has been very clear on the integrity issue,” she said.
During his testimony, Duchesneau explained that he was so disturbed by the scope of corruption that even after he left the employ of the government he worked as a volunteer on a second volume of his report.
He said he received tips from members of the public and made about 50 pages of notes from informants describing illegal schemes in the construction industry and political financing.
He produced a second report that has never surfaced publicly. He tabled it with the inquiry in June and it was to receive a fact-checking before being published for public consumption.
Duchesneau’s still-secret report is titled, “The illegal funding of political parties: A hypocritical system where influence is awarded and decisions are for sale.”
So far his most sensational allegation has been that 70 per cent of money raised by Quebec political parties is done illegally and that “dirty money” is the norm.
While testifying in June, he cited one vivid image relayed to him by one of his investigators: an unnamed municipal party was so flush with fundraising cash that it couldn’t close the door of its safe.
But he has yet to provide specific names from the world of politics. His so-far-untested allegations have prompted an aggressive pushback.
He was grilled at the inquiry by lawyers for the Quebec government and the opposition Parti Quebecois, and challenged to show evidence for his claims.
Duchesneau snapped at the government lawyer at one point. None of the lawyer’s questions were about corruption – but focused instead on things like administrative details about the office he ran.
“The enemy is the people I spent 18 months tracking,” Duchesneau said in June. “All these questions are really funny. We point out collusion to you, and what you’re looking at is my finger _ not where we should be going.
“That’s what’s sad.”
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