The Director General of Elections (DGE) fears that the disclosure of documents from an investigation into the financing of the No camp, during the 1995 referendum, would give rise to the same type of legal proceedings which allowed former Prime Minister Jean Charest to obtain compensation of $350,000 from the government due to media leaks related to investigations by the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC).
In a letter sent at the beginning of September to the National Assembly, whose elected officials requested these documents, Jean-François Blanchet refers directly to a recent decision of the Superior Court rendered in favor of Mr. Charest following the dissemination of his information personal.
“It is important for me to refer you to a recent legal decision by which the Attorney General of Quebec was ordered to pay $350,000 in damages precisely because of the disclosure of personal information collected by a public body as part of a investigation,” writes the DGEQ.
The Superior Court concludes that the public disclosure of personal information contained in an investigation file constitutes an unlawful act engaging the responsibility of the public body and the Quebec state, recalls Mr. Blanchet.
“According to the case law that has been brought to my attention, it appears that even an order from the National Assembly would not make it possible to immunize the institution that I represent from possible prosecution,” he asserts in the document dated September 8.
This letter is part of a series of epistolary exchanges between the National Assembly and the DGEQ, which were made public on Tuesday.
Harm
Mr. Blanchet states in particular that he is faced with an impasse after examining the 40,000 documents from the Grenier Commission and expresses the wish to meet elected officials to explain the situation to them.
“Our analysis of the content of said documents confirms that they contain information whose disclosure would be likely to cause harm to third parties, in particular by harm to their reputations or their private lives,” maintains the DGE.
The different parties represented in the National Assembly agreed this week to meet him but no date has yet been known.
In May and June, deputies from all parties in the National Assembly adopted resolutions asking the DGE “to disclose and make public all the testimony and documents of the Grenier Commission as quickly as possible.”
In 2006, the DGE mandated Judge Bernard Grenier to shed light on the revelations in a book concerning the financing of the activities of the No camp during the 1995 referendum on the sovereignty of Quebec.
In a report filed in 2007, Judge Grenier concluded that $539,460 had been spent illegally during the referendum campaign by two federalist organizations, Option Canada and the Canadian Unity Council. He also ordered that all documents collected by his commission remain secret. However, he left the DGE free to judge whether these elements can be communicated to third parties.
Jurisconsult
On Wednesday, PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon considered it abnormal for the DGE to express his fears in these terms more than three months after the request from elected officials.
“There are perhaps considerations that we have misunderstood on our side,” he said at a press briefing. If the CEO wants to meet with us, I will wait for this meeting before proceeding with the other means available to ensure that Quebecers have the entire truth. »
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon raised the possibility of submitting the question to a jurisconsult who would be responsible for establishing which documents or information can be made public.
“The Director General of Elections is not a court, nor is he a National Assembly. So, he cannot, on his own, being judge and party, decide what he is going to redact,” he said.
The Minister responsible for Democratic Institutions, Jean-François Roberge, for his part accused the Parti Québécois of polarizing the issue. He notably criticized PQ MP Pascal Bérubé for not having responded quickly enough to an invitation to discuss the issue, unlike his colleagues from Québec solidaire and the Liberal Party of Quebec.
“I would like us to work collegially and collaboratively, all parties,” he said. Yesterday I communicated with Sol Zanetti, with Monsef Derraji. I tried to reach Pascal Bérubé and it was very, very, very difficult. »
Mr. Bérubé objected that there are only three PQ elected officials. “There are only three of us, we don’t have time to do everything we have to do. I may not have had time to call him back,” he explained.