Corruption and collusion | Laval exceeds the milestone of 60 million recovered

Laval will announce this Friday having recovered a new sum of 3.8 million from the companies of Tony Accurso. In total, the City estimates it has recovered $60 million that was lost to the corruption that plagued it years ago, including $12 million from the Accurso Group alone. An overall assessment will be presented this fall, when the proceedings will end.

“Obviously, we could always want more, but we are really satisfied with what we managed to get. It’s new money that we reinvest in services to citizens, ”says the mayor of the municipality of the northern crown of Montreal, Stéphane Boyer, in an interview.

When his administration began legal proceedings to recover sums of corruption, in 2014, “many people told us that we were wasting our time and that we would never see the color of this money”, recalls the mayor.

Denouement, because the City is coming to the end of something, 2023 being the last year of application of the An Act to recover amounts unfairly paid following fraud in the context of public contracts, that stemmed from the Charbonneau commission. “We are nearing the end of the proceedings. There are still some files that we will try to conclude, so the total could increase, but we should not expect other amounts in 2024, ”said Mr. Boyer.

Over nearly ten years, a specialized team integrated into the Legal Affairs Department of the City of Laval, which is made up of seven people, including investigators from the Charbonneau Commission, has worked on dozens of separate files related to corruption. In total, more than a hundred people were targeted, some wanting to settle immediately and others forcing the City to go to trial.

“The law allowed us to collect up to 20% of the value of contracts obtained by the municipality determined to be fraudulent. These people therefore retraced the history of all the files, looked for the evidence and took legal action against both individuals and companies. We must highlight their work, ”continues the mayor.

Prevent future discrepancies

For the rest, now, we will have to be on the lookout to ensure that “history does not repeat itself in Laval”, insists Mayor Boyer. “For us, it’s going to be to make sure we never let our guard down, to continue to be very vigilant and, above all, to be able to intervene quickly if necessary with the expertise that we have developed in particular at the Office of Integrity and of Ethics of Laval (BIEL)”, he insists.

It should be remembered that the municipal administration of Laval is recognized as the first public body to have deployed legal strategies to recover embezzled millions. Former Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt has already served a six-year prison sentence for fraud committed over several years.

Before the arrival of Stéphane Boyer at the head of the City, his predecessor, Marc Demers, had already managed to recover nearly 50 million dollars embezzled by fraud and illegal maneuvers. Mr. Demers had also announced in November 2019 that an amount of 20 million would be reinjected into the reserve for the acquisition and development of natural environments. A portion would also be used to pay cash for certain projects to avoid indebtedness.

Some 10 million were also injected into the Fonds Place-du-Souvenir, set up to finance initiatives supporting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. “We still generate $600,000 annually through interest and each year, we host projects aimed at disadvantaged young people. These are very concrete benefits for us. And the rest, we reinvest it everywhere for the citizens, ”assures Mr. Boyer.

A complete report must be tabled this fall to provide an update on all the actions and lawsuits that have been brought by Ville de Laval in recent years.

“We are going to take stock of all the operations for the sake of transparency”, concludes the mayor, whose team also prosecuted, last February, individuals and companies who would have participated in fraudulent schemes to obtain contracts. municipalities, under the administration of former mayor Gilles Vaillancourt, for $9 million.