QUEBEC | Éric Duhaime implied Monday morning that the information about his municipal taxes which had not been paid for two years may have been “leaked”. However, this is information that was public and easily accessible on the Ville de Québec website.
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When a reporter from Radio X asked him if he thought that the fact that his municipal tax information was revealed in The newspaper a few days after having pognas with the mayor Bruno Marchand last September 7 is a coincidence, Éric Duhaime suggested that “confidential information” had perhaps been transmitted to the media.
“It’s a great question all the same, whether or not this information was public. I can’t answer that question for you. Who leaked this information? I can even less answer you,” he said.
“If it was confidential information, yes, you have to ask who the crime is for.”
Asked to clarify what confidential information he was referring to, the Conservative leader replied that he “did not speak of confidential information”, and that he simply wonders how the media had access to information on his tax accounts. “How did they get access, I don’t know?”
The answer to this question is simple. This is information made public in a decision-making summary from the City of Quebec on September 8, the day after Éric Duhaime’s outing against the tramway. However, this document had been approved the day before at 10 a.m. by the City’s executive committee, one hour before Eric Duhaime’s press briefing.
Moreover, the decision-making process that led to the production of this summary began on August 4. Note that the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec was far from the only person appearing on the list of buildings that could be put up for sale for non-payment of municipal taxes. The list is 68 pages.
Our Bureau of Investigation revealed on Saturday that Mr. Duhaime was threatened with seizure for an account of unpaid municipal taxes of $ 14,000 on two residential buildings he owns in Quebec. He owed $12,363 on one of the buildings, the one he rented, and $1,848 on the other, which he lived in himself.