The former right-hand man of Mayor Valérie Plante is demanding nearly $1.7 million from the Quebecor media, which brought to light questionable expenses that occurred during her reign as president of the Office de consultation publique de Montréal ( OCPM).
Dominique Ollivier recently filed a 41-page civil lawsuit at the Montreal courthouse.
She is seeking in particular $600,000 in material damages, $500,000 in moral damages and $500,000 in exemplary damages from three journalists from the Bureau of Investigation, Média QMI and the TVA Group.
A series of articles published last November demonstrated how, for several years, the current and past leaders of the OCPM had increased questionable expenses.
Dominique Ollivier, who was head of the OCPM from 2014 to 2021, was then shocked by the revelations. It was reported that between 2016 and 2019, Mme Ollivier alone spent $17,793 on restaurants.
During a mission abroad, for example, she billed taxpayers $347 for an oyster dinner to celebrate the birthday of her former business partner and collaborator Guy Grenier in a Parisian restaurant.
Shortly after the revelations, the city councilor in the Rosemont borough left her position as president of the executive committee of the City of Montreal.
“Mme Ollivier enjoyed an impeccable reputation before the publication of the defendants’ articles,” the lawsuit writes.