Generation Charbonneau | The Press

Without much attention being paid to it, Quebec has developed a real anti-corruption culture over the past 10 years.

I know, it’s shocking to read this, we prefer to think that everything is bad. But sometimes we need to take a pause from national self-flagellation to measure how far we have come.

The best proof is the stir that these poor $100 cocktails from the Coalition Avenir Québec are causing.

I laugh a lot while observing the display of these false scandals. Money declared, registered, to participate in a political meeting. Maybe “see” a minister.

Ah good ?

Yes, of course, the political financing people may have put away their used tank salesmen’s checkered suits, they have kept old reflexes cheap.

But let’s be serious, this story has to do with bad taste and not at all with political corruption.

It really makes you laugh, when you think of the millions from the sponsorship scandal to finance the Liberal Party of Canada 25 years ago. It’s frankly pitiful, when we compare to the $100,000 demanded from ministers of the Liberal Party of Quebec under Jean Charest. And it’s almost embarrassing when we think about the level of illegal financing practiced by the main Quebec parties barely 10 years ago.

Yes, my mother also tells me to compare myself with the best, and not with the bad ones. We can always do better.

I am simply pointing out that we have moved from a political era where suitcases of tickets flew and flew in total indifference to a moment of ethical awareness that borders on prudishness.

We have changed !

On Tuesday, when I saw the mayor of Laval, Stéphane Boyer, say that his city had “turned the page on corruption”, after having recovered 60 million from the corrupters and the corrupt, it became even clearer.

What is clear?

The children of the Charbonneau commission are in some way in charge in most cities in Quebec. The new generation of mayors, from Quebec to Laval via Longueuil, Montreal, Gatineau and so on, is imbued with a completely different political culture. Whatever you think of The Return of Denis Coderre II on all screens in the province, the fact remains that it inaugurated an era of post-corruption “cleanliness” in Montreal. And whatever you think of Valérie Plante, no one will suspect her of making deals with people carrying suitcases cash.

I still remember my visit to the pharaonic city hall of Longueuil, inherited from another era, where Mayor Catherine Fournier was almost embarrassed to receive me.

We could go on for a long time, and I point out that corruption was not everywhere, and is certainly not eradicated forever. Simply: the quality of the political air has changed, you can feel it, you can breathe it.

To those nostalgic who think that everything “was better before”, I want to remind you of two names: John Gomery and France Charbonneau. Two judges who each chaired a commission of inquiry into corruption and the financing of politics in Quebec.

It’s as if we had forgotten these vaguely shameful episodes in Quebec history. On the contrary, I have always believed that we should be proud to have exposed these embezzlements.

Many have criticized these commissions because they did not make it possible to “arrest the bandits”. First, I remind you that many of the corrupt politicians and businessmen have been convicted in the criminal court, and not just the two of spades. Tony Accurso was still the king of construction…

The Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit had its failures, but it also contributed to housekeeping and general vigilance.

Others said it all cost too much for little results. This is not the case: the Voluntary Reimbursement Program chaired by former judge François Rolland had made it possible to recover 95 million stolen from dozens of cities and the Quebec Ministry of Transport.

This is very little when we know the historical extent of collusion and corruption in certain corners of Quebec. But what I want to highlight today is the “cultural” part. It is the avoided corruption that we must think about. To the amounts that are not stolen today.

The greatest merit of our political-judicial group therapies has been to have driven out a generation of politicians and entrepreneurs. And for scaring others enough by exposing the systems.

I know well, everything is cyclical, we end up letting our guard down, old temptations resurface.

But when we have experienced for two generations the deep, systemic and systematic degree of corruption in a city like Laval, we remember the time when it was unimaginable that it would one day end.

And yet, as Mayor Boyer says, it has happened, the page is turned.