The commissioner for the fight against corruption, Frédérick Gaudreau, transmitted allegations of criminal acts concerning police officers from the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC) to the Minister of Public Security, Geneviève Guilbault.
The allegations target two managers and two investigators and concern the judgment in stay of proceedings pronounced by the Court in the context of the trial of the former mayor of Terrebonne Jean-Marc Robitaille and his co-defendants.
The four members of UPAC were assigned to administrative tasks while the Bureau of Independent Investigations (BEI) was mandated to conduct an investigation.
In October 2021, Judge Nancy McKenna severely blamed the UPAC investigators and the prosecutors of the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) responsible for the prosecution against the former mayor Robitaille.
In particular, the judge reproached the prosecution for having violated the rules of procedure by not disclosing or by disclosing too late evidence in the file which could have served the case of the defence.
According to the judge, the police would have tried to hide information that would have damaged the credibility of a key witness.
“State behavior is likely to undermine the integrity of the judicial process,” wrote Nancy McKenna.
She had therefore ordered a stay of proceedings on the spot.
Police officers lied under oath
In her judgment, the judge had also indicated that police officers had lied under oath: “It is clear that the attack on the integrity of the justice system has worsened, since the evidence clearly shows that the police are ready to lie under oath to hide the truth…”.
Justice McKenna had also indicated that “the lie demonstrates an attempt to mislead the Court and thus aggravates the constitutional violation with regard to the disclosure of evidence and the damage suffered by the judicial system”.
However, according to section 286 of the Police Act, the Anti-Corruption Commissioner “must immediately inform the Minister of any allegation relating to a criminal offense committed by a police officer, unless he considers, after consulting the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions, that the allegation is frivolous or unfounded”.
UPAC spokesperson Mathieu Galarneau told The Canadian Press that UPAC had requested the opinion of the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions in December and received a response from him only this week.
The Commissioner therefore transmitted the allegations to the Minister of Public Security and assigned the police officers concerned to administrative tasks, according to information from UPAC.
The UPAC investigation began in 2018
In addition to Jean-Marc Robitaille, his former chief of staff Daniel Bélec, the former assistant general manager of Terrebonne, Luc Papillon, and the entrepreneur Normand Trudel were also before the court in this case of corruption and breach of trust. The four accused were apprehended by UPAC in March 2018. A fifth suspect, engineer Jean Leroux, was also apprehended, but he died in the meantime.
The Crown sought to demonstrate that Mayor Robitaille had set up a scheme to share contracts between certain engineering firms. The Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions also intended to prove that Mr. Robitaille, in charge of Terrebonne from 1997 to 2016, had largely benefited from this arrangement.
A month after the judgment in stay of proceedings, the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) announced that he would appeal the decision of Judge Nancy McKenna.