Quebec's Most Shameful Month Ever

Humiliating revelations for Montreal police chief Philippe Pichet

October has not been kind to Quebec, with the province on a wild roller coaster ride, lurching from one crisis and humiliating revelation to another.

It's had to keep up with the players and events without a program and for most of us, the accusations of malfeasance, corruption, sexual assaults and all manner of criminality related to the police, politicians and show business personalities is perhaps too much to absorb, given the number of revelations landing one on top of another.

Yesterday the Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police, raided the headquarters of the Montreal police in a stunning, unprecedented and humiliating occurrence. At first, it was thought that it was in relation to an ongoing investigation of the Internal Affairs department, which has more or less been disbanded after an investigation was launched over allegations that the department manufactured evidence to drum out at least four department whistle blowers.

Costas Labos, suspended head of Internal Affairs

Those revelations led to the suspension of Costa Labos, the former head of the internal affairs department who is alleged to have run the department not to weed out crooked cops, but rather to protect them.  Labos had previously been accused of lying to a judge but kept his job anyways. Internal affairs files of the Montreal police are now being handled by the Sûreté du Québec, which means that the department is in fact under defacto trusteeship. Link
At any rate, this raid had nothing to do with that investigation and was conducted in relation to new allegations that the right-hand man of police chief Philippe Pichet is alleged to have illegally taken sums of overtime salary and bonus' that he was not eligible for. The allegations were made by senior whistle blowers within the Montreal police disgusted with the goings-on. Link

And talking about whistle-blowers, the raid happened one day after Guy Ouellette the Liberal Member of the National Assembly for Chomedey was arrested for allegedly leaking information about an investigation by UPAC, the special agency created to combat Quebec corruption. The leaked information was embarrassing to ex-Quebec Premier Jean Charest and chief Liberal party fundraiser and multi-millionaire Marc Bibeau which revealed that they were both actually tailed by UPAC investigators for a time in 2016. Bibeau is alleged to have demanded money on behalf of the party from businesses in a cash-for-access scheme as well as allegedly using his influence to get government agencies to rent offices in his real estate holdings.
The leak infuriated UPAC boss Robert Lafrenière, and he spent enormous UPAC resources tracking down what he termed "the bandit" who leaked the information.

Now this story is complicated, so bear with me.
The arrested MNA, Guy Ouellette and UPAC boss Robert Lafrenière are not friends and in fact, sworn enemies, to say the least. Ouellet has militated for Lafrenière's ouster. Ouellet is an ex-cop himself who has accused UPAC of dragging its feet in pursuing Bibeau and Charest. Apparently, other investigators in UPAC agreed and leaked damaging information, allegedly through Ouellet, in order to spur UPAC to hurry up its investigation.
The arrest of Ouellette comes after UPAC raided the home of one of its ex-investigators alleged to be the leaker. During the raid, the cell phone of the target of the raid, Richard Despatie, was confiscated and searched, revealing the MNA's phone number. In a cloak and dagger operation, UPAC then texted the MNA on Despatie's phone and told him to meet Despatie (which was a ruse) at a restaurant to receive more leaked info. When Ouellet showed up he was greeted by UPAC detectives and arrested.
Now the arrest is highly dubious, because of the way the MNA was entrapped. The police certainly had a right to search Despatie's phone for evidence in relation to the search, but probably didn't have the legal right to use Depatie's phone as an investigative weapon.
Perhaps for this reason, the MNA's name was never publicized by UPAC, who released the MNA without charges. On the surface, there is no legal case to be made, short of a confession, but the damage to the MNA's reputation is devastating even though it really isn't clear who is the bad guy in all this.
Is Lafrenière settling a political score with his political enemy?
What were the motives of the MNA's leak, which actually hurt his own Liberal party? Dunno????
At any rate, whistle-blowers are usually revered, but in this case dragged through the mud and treated like a lowly criminal. I want to stress that Guy Ouellette has a stellar reputation and even opposition MNAs are rallying to his defence. It is all very strange.

And before we leave the Montreal police, we recently learned that the always racist Montreal police issued a ticket to a man for singing in his car.
On Sept. 27, Taoufik Moalla (a visible ethnic) was on his way to buy a bottle of water, happily singing along to C+C Music Factory’s 1990 song “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” when he says he heard a police siren blaring behind him.

“I was thinking they wanted to pass, but they called on the speaker, ‘Please go to the right side,’” Moalla told CTV Montreal. “I stopped and four police came, two on each side, and checked the inside of the car. Then they asked me if I screamed. I said, ‘No, I was just singing.’”

Four policemen?
Last time I got a ticket it was given to me by one cop, but then again I'm white. as they say,"Plus ça change"...... 

Speaking of racism, the Quebec government came to its senses and cancelled hearings into the entrenched racism enquiry it had foolishly scheduled in the wake of the Quebec city mosque murders, after realizing that the revelations and testimony would likely be devastating and humiliating. Better to cancel the whole thing and take just one day of flak for the about-face. Surprisingly or not surprisingly, that didn't happen with the news being greeted by a collective sigh of release. Link

Now on to the sex scandals that are rocking Quebec to its foundations. 
After the Weinstein affair, the floodgates have opened with women across North America emboldened to out their sexual assaulters.
Several high profile Quebecers have seen revelations destroy their professional and I daresay their personal lives.

Rozon & Salvail.. Birds of a Feather

First was Gilbert Rozon, the head of the Just for Laughs organization, outed as an alleged sexual predator by several high profile accusers including Julie Snyder (big time TV personality/producer,)  who is by the way, the ex-wife of Pierre-Karl Péladeau. A similar complaint was lodged by another TV show host, Penelope McQuaid. Link
Rozon was quite the big shot in Quebec media circles but following the accusations, he was quickly fed to the sharks with other media organizations announcing that he was being blacklisted, leading him to resign his position and him putting his shares up for sale.
Then another bombshell landed on another powerful Quebec TV personality who  was also revealed to have allegedly sexually-targeted women. 

“If Rozon is the Weinstein of comedy, assuming the allegations are true, Salvail could be called Quebec's Jian Ghomeshi – except that Salvail had a much bigger presence in his broadcast market, on both TV and radio. He had also parlayed his personal brand into a company that had 11 original programs in its production stable. Like Rozon, Salvail has greatly benefited from Quebec's robust star system, which can make household names of entertainment figures unknown outside the province. Salvail's shows, like several competing talk programs, were also engines of that home-grown star system, which has no equivalent in the rest of Canada. After reports were published last week of 11 mostly anonymous complaints against him, Salvail vanished from the airwaves and announced he was taking "a pause" from his public career.” Link

But the hits just kept coming as yet another Quebec personality is accused of sexual impropriety. This week a young Quebec author/journalist revealed that when she was just seventeen years old and working for her idol, she was sexually assaulted by her boss.
Léa Clermont-Dion accused Michel Venne of sexual misconduct when she was working for him one summer at the Institut du Nouveau Monde, a lefty type think tank. In a lengthy and thoroughly coherent piece on her Facebook page, Clermont-Dion accused the Quebec media star of shattering her illusions by sexually assaulting her.
She didn't report the assault but told friends about it and quickly rumours spread, outing the perpetrator.

Lise Payette..Pedo and Sex Abuser enabler

Then Lise Payette, a friend of Venne got in touch with Clermont-Dion and met her in an effort to get her to recant her story and the marathon two-hour meeting culminated with Payette applying pressure for her to sign a letter disavowing the incident, because as Payette described, it was hurting Venne and his family and was threatening his chances at becoming an editor at Le Devoir.
Clermont-Dion tells how her illusions about another one of her idols was shattered by the bullying of Payette.
You might recall Payette as the PQ feminist minister who accused Quebec women of being "Yvettes"  a reference for docile and obedient housewives who would meekly vote NO in the upcoming referendum. That ploy backfired rather badly as opponents proudly donned the label of 'Yvette'.
At any rate, Payette defended her actions in the affair by telling the media that she was acting in Clermont-Dion's best interests as any accusation against the powerful Venne would, according to Payette, result in a painful backlash against the accuser. ....Yah sure.
Payette's nose stretcher excuse didn't fly and she has been thoroughly roasted for her seemingly betrayal of victims of sexual assault. She was denounced in the Journal du Montreal as a "fake feminist' by Sophie Durocher who reminded readers that Payette had previously defended Claude Jutra, the famous film-maker and homosexual pedophile in a bizarre article entitled "Claude Jutra était mon ami" ('Claude Jutra was my friend') where she stated that she doubted the word of the victims.
Payette is 85 years old and there is a certain satisfaction in knowing  that she will go to her grave disgraced.

And let's not forget Michel Brulé renowned anglo hater who wrote a book with the theme that English was an ugly language who is also accused by several ex-employees of being a filthy sexual assaulter. Brulé has withdrawn his candidacy from the race for Plateau-Mont-Royal borough mayor even while denying it all.

Accurso looking glum

On the criminal front, the trial of the former construction czar Tony Accurso finally got underway in Laval, with turncoat witnesses lining up to testify about the entrenched system of corruption in the awarding of construction contracts. The testimony by the admitted co-conspirators, both politicians, players in the construction industry and within the corrupt engineering firms is still a little hard to take

“According to the Crown, Vaillancourt would decide which engineering firm would get a contract, then rig the bids accordingly before the call for tenders was issued. In exchange, Accurso and others would pay Vaillancourt a percentage in cash handed over in brown.” envelopes. Link

In another legal story that has me questioning whether it is really 2017 in Quebec. A judge humiliated a girl with comments out of the 1950's. It was during a case where a taxi driver was accused of a sexual assault;

"She's a young girl, 17. Maybe she's a little overweight but she has a pretty face, no?" the judge said in recordings first unearthed by the Journal de Montréal.

Speaking French, the judge went on to describe the young woman as a "fleur bleue" (sentimental or romantic.) "She was a bit flattered," the judge continued. "Maybe it was the first time he showed interest in her." Link

And let us not forget the disastrous start to the season by the Montreal Canadiens who appear to be on course for the worst season in Habs history, sporting a 2-7-1 won/lost/overtime win record, being outscored 38-10 in the process.
In a whistling in the dark eulogy, Marc Bergevin warned the players that there'd be no help from management vis-a-vis trades and that they'd have to suck it up.
Bergevin had been the incompetent author of the off-season loss of veteran blue-liner Andre Markov and the popular Alexander Radulov.
I don't think I'm alone in believing that the Bergevin death-watch is on, the only thing missing is a qualified francophone to replace him. It probably won't make a difference. Iacta ālea est.

In the business world, another disaster as Bombardier moved to save the furniture by handing over the C-Series project to Airbus for free. The company rightly concluded that a reduced ownership share of something successful is better than 100% ownership of a money-losing venture. The big loser in all this are the taxpayers who have collectively shelled out hundreds of millions in subsidies which Airbus will not reimburse.
And Ericsson, the telecom giant is closing its giant facility in Vaudreuil-Dorion less than a year after it opened. The company benefitted from a $30 million gift from the PQ when it pitched the facility to Quebec.

This month saw Quebec pass its controversial anti niqab and burqa law much to the consternation of Liberal politicians across Canada. Underlying the issue is the very real reality of coercion of Muslim women into wearing either a veil or scarf.

“A Quebec man has been charged with allegedly assaulting his teenage daughter over a year in what police are calling "honour-based" violence.  Gatineau police say the level of violence escalated once the man discovered the girl was removing her hijab when she was away from the family home. She decided to file a police complaint, which culminated in an arrest Wednesday.” Link

 
More.... 
Quebec fur company fined $22,500 for trafficking in polar bear skins

Quebec radiologists billing $3M annually for obsolete task 
 
71 puppies up for adoption after rescue from suspected Quebec puppy mill

And so, it's been quite an eventful month indeed and we've still got a few days to go!

Permit me readers to finish on a positive note.

With a grandson on the autism spectrum, I personally know too well how traumatic haircuts are.
Let me salute this Val D'Or barber who went the extra mile to make a difficult procedure  better.

 “A Quebec barber who got down on the floor to trim the hair of a young client with autism was applauded in Canada’s Senate chamber Wednesday, several weeks after a photo of him garnered worldwide attention.
Francis “Franz” Jacob was invited to Ottawa by Sen. Marie-Francoise Megie for the Senate’s autism awareness day.” Link

Have a great weekend!