Head of Quebec’s corruption inquiry asks: ‘Were you an incompetent imbecile’

MONTREAL – Robert Marcil likely expected to face plenty of tricky questions during his three days on the stand before the Charbonneau Commission, but there was one he definitely wasn’t ready for.

“Are you telling us you were an incompetent imbecile?” Justice France Charbonneau asked the former public works chief point-blank on Wednesday morning.

The blunt query came in response to Marcil’s claim that he couldn’t remember whether he ever discussed the internal workings of the city of Montreal’s selection committees with the former financing head for the Union Montreal party, Bernard Trépanier. The committees, usually made up of public servants, were responsible for reviewing the bids on public works contracts and selecting a winner. Marcil sat on several of them.

“I don’t have a precise memory,” Marcil had testified. “It’s possible he asked me a question (about the committees).”

When Charbonneau suggested that only an “incompetent imbecile” would have failed to note such a conversation (a political organizer asking about the committees’ work would be highly irregular), Marcil seemed at a loss for words.

“I’m definitely not perfect,” he finally said.

“Yes, we agree on that,” the judge replied.

The hole in Marcil’s memory seemed even more suspicious in light of phone records that indicated he frequently spoke to Trépanier on the same days that the committees sat – sometimes right after the meetings wrapped. Commission lawyer Denis Gallant suggested Marcil was, in fact, colluding with Trépanier, trying to rig contracts in favour of certain companies in exchange for political donations. Marcil denied it.

“What I’m telling you is that (the timing of the calls) was a coincidence,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Gallant spent nearly two hours outlining the double professional life Marcil was apparently leading in the 2000s. On one hand, Gallant explained, the former top bureaucrat was responsible for overseeing an entire city department with an annual budget in the tens of millions. He approved project plans, managed 250 employees and sat on 17 selection committees.

But according to evidence collected by the inquiry, Marcil was simultaneously cultivating a friendship with Yves Lortie, the head of local firm Genivar. He was also being courted behind the scenes by several private companies, who were dangling high-paying jobs in front of him. Groupe SM, the engineering firm that eventually hired Marcil after he stepped down in 2009, had been trying to snap him up for two years.

“I didn’t see any conflict of interest,” Marcil said Wednesday, adding that he never let his relationships with the firms influence his decisions. The selection committees he sat on were made of at least four or five members, he explained, and used pre-set criteria to determine the winner of a contract.

“No one can predict the results,” he said.

Marcil also maintained that he never accepted money in exchange for favours, telling the commissioners that Génius Conseil boss Michel Lalonde lied to them when he claimed Marcil accepted cash bribes of as much as $5,000. Lalonde was probably upset that he had passed up a job at Génius in favour of the position at Groupe SM, Marcil theorized, and was “taking revenge” by dragging Marcil’s name through the mud.

Gallant wasn’t buying it.

“You had both hands in it,” the lawyer said. “The corruption and collusion were built into a system. You’re under oath, so admit it.”

But Marcil wouldn’t budge, denying he had even heard rumours of such a system. That led Gallant to bring up yet another questionable decision he made while working for the city – hiring the daughter of local construction magnate Nicolo Milioto.

It was he who advised Caterina Milioto to apply for a job with the city, Marcil acknowledged, but it was “absolutely not” done as a favour to her father. She was qualified and her application treated like any other, he said. Milioto also quit her municipal job in 2009, and like Marcil, is now working for Groupe SM.

Marcil’s testimony wrapped up early Wednesday afternoon. He was followed on the stand by another former city bureaucrat, Serge Pourreaux.