MONTREAL – Jean Charest’s Liberals have “perverted” the political system to reward generous contributors to the party, members of the Parti Québécois declared at a press conference in Montreal on Monday.
With the provincial election campaign at the end of its first week, three PQ MNAs alleged favouritism in the sale of school board land in Brossard by the Liberal government to Fondation F. Catania to build a community centre in 2008.
The foundation paid $600,000 for the land in July of that year. The foundation’s president is Paolo Catania, who was arrested by Quebec’s Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit in May over a municipal land deal in Montreal.
Education Minister Michelle Courchesne approved the sale without public tenders by Riverside school board. Liberal MNA Fatima Houda-Pepin announced the community centre would be built in her riding of La Pinière.
The same year, Nathalie Normandeau, who was municipal affairs minister at the time, announced a $3.8 million government contribution to the foundation to build the community centre.
However, the community centre was never built. The foundation sold the property for $1.591 million to a firm to build condos in July 2009.
Questions about the land deal were first raised in media reports in 2008.
“This piece of real estate, which was sold at a very low price for a public project . . . should have been returned to the public treasury to be used for the public interest instead of the interest of the Catania foundation,” PQ MNA Bernard Drainville said.
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He was accompanied by fellow MNAs Nicolas Girard and Bertrand St. Arnaud.
“It is not normal the Catania foundation is making a million bucks in less than one year while our school boards are crying for money and while the South Shore community is asking for a new community centre,” Drainville said.
Catania, a director of his foundation and the notary who handled the foundation’s purchase of the land have contributed to the Liberal party, Drainville noted.
“Why is it yet again that the friends of the Liberal party are cashing in on public money while we have all of these public needs that need to be fulfilled?” Drainville asked.
The PQ previously revealed favouritism in the attribution of permits for subsidized daycares to Liberal party donors, which led to a scathing report by the province’s auditor-general last year detailing irregularities in the issuing of 18,000 daycare permits in 2008.
The PQ press conference came after a weekend poll by Léger Marketing found that 70 per cent of Quebecers think the Liberal government is corrupt.
The number is so high, it surely includes Liberal voters, pollster Jean-Marc Léger told the Journal de Montréal, which published the poll. The poll was conducted for Agence QMI.
Still, the poll also found a large number of people believe it will take more than one person to combat corruption.
Less than half of respondents in the poll agreed that former Montreal police chief and former anti-collusion squad head Jacques Duchesneau, who became a surprise star candidate for the Coalition Avenir Québec last week, can eliminate or reduce corruption.
The PQ MNAs said voters should pick the PQ for its experience writing the province’s first party-financing rules in the 1970s and dogging the Liberals on the issue of favouritism, and should not settle for the CAQ just because of one candidate who says he’s dedicated to fighting corruption.
“The Liberals allowed corruption to settle in everywhere,” Girard said. “A man alone, an Eliot Ness, isn’t enough. To eradicate corruption, you need a whole team.”
Mylène Forget, a spokesperson for Catania’s businesses, said the foundation has no comment “for the moment.”
The Quebec chief electoral officer’s public database of provincial party donations indicates Paolo Catania has contributed to the Liberals, PQ and Action démocratique du Québec, which merged with the CAQ earlier this year, 26 times since 2000.
In a press release issued last night, the Quebec Liberal Party accused the Parti Québécois of making false allegations against Liberal cabinet ministers and MNAs.
“The PQ is very nervous since the arrival of Jacques Duchesneau on the election campaign, » the release said.
Education Minister Michelle Courchesne went on television last night to deny the PQ’s allegations.
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