Good news to end the year 2023 in style. All of Quebec can congratulate itself on having put an end to cronyism and questionable practices in terms of financing political parties. Access to a minister is now for a handful of dollars.
We must remember the climate that prevailed almost 15 years ago, when sectoral financing from companies, an illegal practice under electoral law, was widespread within all parties represented in the National Assembly. The Parti Québécois (PQ) and the defunct Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ) did not turn their noses up at corporate contributions, but they did not have the same voracious appetite as the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ). By requiring his ministers to raise at least $100,000 per year, Jean Charest had set the bar so high that he had pushed constituency executives into the arms of large construction and engineering consulting firms seeking to obtain lucrative public contracts. The firms used their employees to finance the parties, even if it meant using nominees to achieve this.
This is partly the genesis of the Charbonneau commission, which ended with a dissent between commissioners France Charbonneau and Renaud Lachance on the causal relationship between Quebec political financing and the awarding of public engineering contracts.
What a long way we have come since those crazy times! The reform of party financing, under the PQ of Pauline Marois, the lasting effects of the Charbonneau commission, the tightening of the rules for awarding contracts and public governance over 15 years, all parties combined, as well as the almost implosion of the PLQ as a vehicle for business interests, have practically tamed the beast of greed within political groups.
So, when it comes to financing scandals, it’s lean season. At the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), $100 now does the trick to access decision-makers. Municipal elected officials recently said that they feel obliged to make a contribution to the CAQ in the hope of meeting the ministers when they are passing through their hometown. Note that the CAQ does not require anything, but the process seems well established. When several elected officials from several different regions describe the same thing, it is because there is a modus operandi there.
The mayor of Rivière-du-Loup, Mario Bastille, made a colorful comment to denounce the ordinary nature of this practice. “We must have transparent access to our ministers as part of our work and not in a local 5 to 7 while eating a bag of chips and having a liquor,” he said.
Ewan Sauves, press secretary to the Prime Minister, made it clear that municipal elected officials are not forced to attend a fundraising cocktail to meet ministers. Prime Minister François Legault quickly swept the criticism under the rug. But if many municipal elected officials do this, and express their unease in the public arena, it is because there is perhaps an uncomfortable situation there. The practice is not illegal, but it is certainly subject to debate in terms of public ethics. It is above all a question of judgment, a quality which manifested itself in an uneven manner, to say the least, this fall within the Legault government.