The mayor’s right-hand man warned Montrealers at the beginning of October: get ready, you’re going to have to tighten your belt. Hand on heart, Dominique Ollivier, in charge of the city’s finances, swore that she would carefully examine each service in each district in order to find the slightest expense to reduce. Hard work, but rigorous. “We are turning over all the stones. »
Don’t thank me, Ms. Ollivier, but I found 3 million dollars to replenish your coffers, like that, without even having to turn over a single stone. All you have to do is close the door of the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM), a thing that you know very well since you presided over its destiny from 2014 to 2021…
A thing, I said, which serves absolutely no purpose other than allowing its leaders to eat in the best restaurants and travel to the four corners of the world at the princess’s expense.
Remember, Ms. Ollivier: you alone, in four years, spent $17,793 at Europea, Monarque and other major restaurants in the metropolis. Each time, on the taxpayer’s arm.
This same taxpayer that you took for an idiot, I mean pityingly, at the beginning of October, explaining that he will soon have to increase his tax bill: “We have at heart the ability to pay and the interests of the population,” he said. you, but there are realities that we cannot escape…”
Looking back, I have to tell you, your message doesn’t come across well. Since the Quebecor media revelations about your staggering expenses at the OCPM, I would even say that it does not pass everywhere. Here is another reality from which you cannot escape: you no longer have the legitimacy required to remain president of the executive committee of the City of Montreal.
In 2019, the OCPM consulted 10,000 Montrealers to find out their point of view on the future of the Camillien-Houde route. After consulting everyone, the organization wrote a nice big report, which recommended maintaining automobile traffic on Mount Royal.
Valérie Plante’s administration hastened to put the nice big report on a nice big tablet. In September, she announced that the Camillien-Houde route would be car-free. To hell with the OCPM recommendation! And the opinion of the Montrealers consulted, at the same time…
It’s a shame, because for once, the OCPM could have been useful for something. After all, the primary mission of this organization, entirely financed by public funds, is to consult the Montreal public.
But if this is the mission of the organization, will you tell me what its leaders will do in Australia, the Netherlands, France, Spain, the Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Brazil, in Mexico, the United Kingdom, Morocco, Switzerland, Argentina, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates?
Seriously, what’s the point of all these trips? I mean, other than producing famished reports filled with insignificance?
Just like Dominique Ollivier, Isabelle Beaulieu, who succeeded him as president of the OCPM, clings to her position. The secretary general of the organization, Guy Grenier, too. It just doesn’t make sense. The three of them dug into the candy dish with unimaginable nerve.
They have squandered public funds with an ardor that would command respect, if it were not so insulting.
$900 headphones. $500 hockey tickets. An oyster dinner for $347 in Paris. It was Dominique Ollivier who put it on her expense account, this one, on a beautiful Sunday in 2016. She had deemed it perfectly normal, it seems, to celebrate the birthday of her friend Guy Grenier at the costs of Montrealers. Friends first…
Not only did these people allow themselves to spend public funds lavishly, but they did it among friends. There is an unbearable smell of cronyism surrounding this scandal.
Otherwise, how can we explain that the candidacy of Guy Grenier was deemed ideal, in 2022, to fill the position of secretary general of the OCPM? Four years earlier, the man had been dismissed from his post as chief of staff to the mayor of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu…
To this day, Guy Grenier remains entangled in costly and acrimonious legal disputes with the City of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. It seems to me that we could have said, at the OCPM, that he was in too delicate a position to occupy a senior management position within the organization.
It could have been noted that the elected officials of Saint-Jean-sur Richelieu had denounced the “dual employment” of Guy Grenier: in addition to being the mayor’s chief of staff, he remained president of the Ki3 consulting firm.
Obviously, we didn’t do it. For the OCPM, this probably posed no problem. It must be said that Guy Grenier co-founded this consulting firm with his friend… Dominique Ollivier!
And to whom did Guy Grenier end up selling his business in 2018?
To his other friend, Isabelle Beaulieu, the same one who appointed him secretary general of the OCPM! Without the slightest job posting, she admitted to the Montreal Journal, still specifying that she went to eat with other potential candidates.
At the expense of Montrealers, we can easily imagine.
All stones have been turned over since this scandal broke a week ago. It is unthinkable that our three friends will stay in office.
Unthinkable that Dominique Ollivier would present the City’s budget to Montrealers on November 15, telling them that, sorry, we really did everything we could, but your municipal bill will jump…
Unthinkable, above all, that Valérie Plante continues to defend her. She should have fired her days ago by now. The longer the mayor waits, the more the scandal will stick to her.
The longer she waits, the more Montrealers will end up believing that, for Valérie Plante too, it’s friends first.