The abandonment of the Mâchurer project, this vast investigation into the financing of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) under Jean Charest, marks a turning point in the young history of the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC). The lackluster era of Robert Lafrenière is finally over. The Unit, led by Commissioner Frédérick Gaudreau, can now turn to reconstruction, in the hope of one day finding the path to success.
You have to read the reports of the UPAC Activities Monitoring Committee (CSUPAC), under the chairmanship of Claude Corbo, to understand how far UPAC has started. Although this annual review does not focus on specific investigations, it provides instructive insight into the limitations of UPAC in stemming corruption. The UPAC is not so much a unit as a collection of investigators on loan, who do not all have the expertise and skills to understand the functioning of the Quebec state and the business community. The police have not always made the difference between networking and cronyism in politics, so much so that we no longer count the investigations of the UPAC having ended in fish tail.
The original error was to think that investigators specializing in the fight against organized crime could transpose their know-how in tracking down bikers and mafiosi in pursuit of the aces of political financing. Moreover, Commissioner Gaudreau suggested, as part of the consultations on police reform, creating a new status for investigating police officer in Quebec, in order to diversify the profile and expertise of the police officers responsible for investigating corruption.
The abandonment of Mâchurer is also part of a broader debate than the effectiveness of UPAC. Its investigators have to deal with an outdated Criminal Code to repress increasingly complex economic crimes. As the most recent CSUPAC report reminds us, corruption offenses are consensual matters and without complainants. They leave few traces and involve participants who have no interest in collaborating with the authorities. These crimes reveal themselves in a trail of hard-to-obtain documents within the companies and organizations involved in the fraudulent schemes. If the culprits are the least bit clever, they will have retained the services of lawyers to endorse the disputed transactions. The searches will be slowed down, not to say compromised, by endless debates on the lawyer’s professional secrecy.
Ultimately, if governments are serious about fighting corruption, they will need to provide modern tools to specialized units. It is up to Ottawa to modernize the Criminal Code, for example by introducing offenses on collusion, the use of facilitators and nominees. The legislator must also find a way to simplify and speed up the communication of elements of the investigation that are protected by the professional secrecy of the lawyer, without cutting back on this fundamental right protected by the charters. It’s no small feat, but without these changes it will be difficult to tackle the most complex forms of corruption and collusion.
UPAC did not justify its decision to abandon the Mâchurer investigation. The legal opinion that Commissioner Gaudreau requested from the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) on the evidence collected to date will obviously not be made public, professional secrecy requires! As a precaution, the DPCP entrusted the analysis to a review committee chaired by a retired judge from the Court of Appeal, the irreproachable André Rochon. The process is exemplary in terms of independence and impartiality. The lawsuit of two million dollars against the Quebec State brought by Jean Charest, however, undermines the transparency of the exercise. The public will remain unsatisfied, and the lack of trust in public institutions will be reinforced.
We can very well formulate plausible hypotheses on the Mâchurer flop, among which are: the inability of the DPCP to obtain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt based on the initial cause theory presented by the UPAC, the impossibility of managing and presenting such voluminous evidence within the time limits prescribed by the Jordan decision, the irreparable violation of Jean Charest’s right to the presumption of innocence due to the leaks.
Be that as it may, it is time to draw a line under the Lafrenière era and get down to the lasting reconstruction of the UPAC, a squad that Quebec still needs if it has the strength to recover. Rather than being indignant at the abandonment of Mâchurer, we prefer to recall a principle that UPAC had forgotten under the direction of Robert Lafrenière. In a legal system based on the presumption of innocence, no one should live like Jean Charest, with the sword of Damocles of a leaky investigation that drags on for eight years without charges being laid.