Montreal a Cesspool of Corruption

There's really no other way to put it.
After listening to Tuesday's blockbuster testimony by Lino Zambito at the Charbonneau Commission looking into corruption in Quebec's construction industry, it is no overstatement to say that Montreal is a cesspool of corruption.

Although we all had no doubt that this was the case, hearing the scams laid out so neatly, plus the addition of the names of the people involved still comes as quite a shock and eye-opener.

You can read all the sordid details in the newspaper, but it all essentially boils down to a very simple, but nefarious swindle that implicates all the players in the game, including the taxpaying boobs like us, who underwrote everything with our outrageous municipal taxes.

Mr. Zambito described the scam rather simply, though it seemed that the head of the commission Judge Charbonneau, had a bit of trouble understanding, which isn't surprising as most on the bench have lived cloistered lives and understand next to nothing about money and how the real world works.

At any rate I'll save you all the trouble and describe the plot rather simply.

City of Montreal construction contracts were divvied up among construction firms that rigged the bidding process under the auspices and protection of the Mafia, who took a commission of 2.5% of the total value for 'godfathering' (excuse the pun) the scam and keeping everyone in line.

The winning contractor (whose bid was inflated by up to 30%) paid a 3% commission to Montreal's ruling political party, Mayor Tremblay's Union Montreal.
A 1% commission was also paid to Gilles Surprenant, the Montreal bureaucrat who was responsible for the public-works projects for the city of Montreal, as well as creating and overseeing the budgets. Link
Mr Surprenant referred to himself as “Monsieur TPS,” ('Tax pour Surprenant') a play on the French term for the GST tax.

Some of this is not new, back in May, I wrote a lengthy piece about Montreal corruption and if you'd like to refresh your memory read;  Corruption- Montreal Style

Alfred E. Tremblay....What me worry?

In addition to all this, city employees were also on the take, from the very top engineers responsible for the projects, to the overseers in the field who verified the work done by the contractors.

Mr Zambito described another scam between city engineers and the construction companies where the latter would authorize extra bogus payments for unforeseen contingencies, this on top of the tendered price. The proceeds of these phoney bills were split between the engineers who kept 25% and the contractor who kept 75%.
Hmm....Not bad work if you can get it!

These frauds weren't limited to a few bad apples, but were widespread and an open secret among city employees and construction contractors.

The biggest names to be fingered so far by Zambito are Robert Abdallah and Frank Zampino.

Abdallah- Connected to the Prime_Minister?

Abdallah is a former director general of the city and top civil servant, who has denied the allegation that he pocketed $300,000 on a certain project. He is said to be huddling with lawyers preparing a counterattack. Link

Frank Zampino, was  Mayor Tremblay's second in command, until he resigned abruptly, more than four years ago to go work for the infamous Tony Accurso, the top dog in the local construction industry who is currently under indictment after being arrested in April on charges of fraud, conspiracy, influence-peddling and breach of trust.
His companies have in the past pled guilty to income tax evasion and just recently he was arrested once again on charges of federal income-tax evasion. Link
Zambito claimed in his testimony that Zampino, while working for the city, steered a large contract to a company owned by the very same Tony Accurso for whom he later went to work for.
Mr. Zampino is currently under indictment in another case of influence peddling and fraud. Link

According to Zambito, city employees weren't even shy about talking graft openly and even went so far as to demand that Zambito take them on vacation. LINK
Mr. Zambito wasn't even a big player in the industry, yet he admitted  paying one city employee over $200,000 in brides.

At any rate, you've got to admire the guts of Lino Zambito, naming names like that is usually a guarantee that an assassin's bullet is on its way and so his forthrightness can only mean that he's already signed his witness protection contract and that he'll be slinging pizzas in the likes of Wayburn, Saskatchewan, along with his family in no time.
The dead giveaway is that the police are already protecting his family with cruisers parked in front of his ex-wife's home, his father's house and the pizzeria that he owns. That's a lot of resources.
Right, Mister Zambito Peterson?

And you've got to hand it to the Mafia as well, they really seemed to have had things neatly arranged, controlling the construction companies, city of Montreal engineers and inspectors, the political party of mayor Gerald Tremblay and yes, even Canada Revenue Agency agents, who made sure those pesky audits went away.

Now this is just the beginning of the inquiry and since the whole thing is choreographed, I'm sure we'll be treated to more delightful stories of graft and greed that pretty much reaches everywhere public money is spent.
Next on Mr. Zambito's hit list are the politicians that run certain small towns, who act in place of the absent Mafia in the above-mentioned scams.
Boy oh boy, there are a lot of people sleeping poorly tonight!

This morning I heard a so-called expert on TV say that just about all of Quebec' engineering firms are crooked to some extent and that payoffs for contracts at home and abroad is standard-operating-procedure. 

Dr.Porter-Whereabouts unknown

Yesterday a La Presse story alleges, in a roundabout fashion, that Arthur Porter, the disgraced ex-head of Montreal's new super hospital, may have been the beneficiary of a $22 million payment made overseas, allegedly made by SNC Lavelin in relation to winning the contract to build the hospital.  That's what the big raid by anti-corruption police at the hospital's head office, a couple of weeks ago, was all about. Link
By the way, Mr. Porter skipped town and is nowhere to be found. He stills owes McGill for a $500,000 personal loan. Link{Fr} Link2{Fr}

This whole scandal is also about to blow up.

Considering the scope of this alleged fraud, another investigation involving another MUHC employee who is accused of embezzling $1.6 million seems to be chump change. Link

So let's not make this into a French/English thing and come to think of it the Mafia is Italian, but more aligned to the English than the French.

Sgt Tremblay,"I see nuthing!! I know nuthing!!"

And of course, in all this, our idiot Mayor Tremblay stands firmly on his position that he knew nothing at all, which is hard to believe considering that last year he admitted in public that he feared for his life.

But you know, bad as it seems, this whole mess is really not that hard to clean up, mark my words.
The corruption at Montreal City Hall will end, because it isn't that hard to control once you set your mind to it.
Already the inflated portions of the bids are reported to be down by half and will soon disappear.

All that is required is the political will to do so, and whether politicians like it or not, the public will no longer stand for these shenanigans.
The same goes for corruption in the Ministry of Transport and cities and towns across Quebec.

The Charbonneau Commission is a creation of public demand and what we have learned so far is that corruption is everywhere and predates Mr. Charest and the Liberals who were made the fall guys by the voters.

And so, demands for Mayor Tremblays resignation are becoming louder and louder.
Perhaps he can finish his term which ends next year, but if he tries to run again, we will repeat the provincial election fiasco that saw Charest dumped by an unforgiving public. If Tremblay runs we will be faced with the choice a unilingual separatist, Louise Harel, whose party has already been fined for illegal campaign financing, or Projet Montreal, a granola party that has truther Richard Bergeron as it head.

Some choice that is, so perhaps we should just stick with the Mafia;

Here is  Rick Blue's (of Boswer and Blue fame) take on why the Mafia is preferable to separatists, plus a few of my own.

1. The Mafia only wants control over drugs, prostitution and construction..... Separatists want control over everything.
2. The Mafia doesn’t force everyone to speak Italian.
3. The Mafia doesn’t depress housing prices.
4. The Mafia isn’t the reason our children move to Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.
5. You can reason with the Mafia.
6. The Mafia doesn't care what school you go to.
7. Unlike the police, when the Mafia offers protection, you get it.
8. The Mafia doesn't care about the language of store signs.  

By the way, Montreal's new mayor next year will be none other than Denis Coderre, a federal Liberal. MP.... just a fearless prediction.