Recycling giant Ricova is turning to the Superior Court to challenge the City of Montreal’s decision to put its owner Dominic Colubriale and its subsidiaries on the “blacklist” of public contracts for five years.
Posted at 8:45 a.m.
“Montréal is acting illegally, showing bad faith and exceeding its powers,” insisted the group in a press release published Thursday, arguing that the City’s decision “is based on the unfounded conclusions of the Office of Inspector General ( BIG)”.
In March, the BIG called for Ricova’s contracts to be terminated “as soon as possible” after an investigation revealed “deceitful tactics” by Ricova to avoid handing over to the City its fair share of the profits made on the sale of recyclable materials.
The BIG had also revealed that the group kept “undeclared” income of $20 per ton. It is in light of the information that the City says it wanted to prevent Services Ricova and Ricova International – the second buys recyclable materials from the first – from participating in any public call for tenders until 2027. “We are faced with a situation worrying, and action must be taken”, argued the head of the environment on the executive committee, Marie-Andrée Mauger, on June 8.
Ricova, however, denies these conclusions as a whole, judging rather to have “never contravened the contractual provisions” with the City or carried out “deceitful or fraudulent maneuvers”. “The City of Montreal knew very well that the material was sold at the Quebec market price to Ricova International. Moreover, Ricova International was the buyer for more than 90% of the recycled materials from the Lachine and Saint-Michel sorting centers even before they were taken over by Services Ricova,” Ricova’s director of communications insisted on Thursday. , Stephanie Dunglas.
Like its past statements, the organization reiterates that it “has only maintained the practices in force when these centers were managed respectively by the MD Paper Recycling Company and by Rebuts Solides Canadiens (RSC) “.
A “hidden agenda”
The company is also attacking what it calls “the hidden agenda of the City”, denouncing the closure of the authorities to dialogue to settle the dispute. “Representatives and elected officials have always refused to speak to us, although we have the contract in good and due form. If they had issues to discuss with us about our practices, they could have done so with a constructive dialogue. […] For the City, it is politically more important to attack us than to help us improve the situation,” said M.me Dunglas.
Both at the sorting center in Saint-Michel and Lachine, Ricova believes that it has “delivered the goods”. We recall that 6.5 million have been invested since 2020 in Saint-Michel to buy new equipment, including five optical sorters to “reduce the rate of contamination of bales”. In all, 7 million were also paid in two years to the City, for the materials sold in Saint-Michel.
In Lachine, where the city owns, Ricova says she filed a $4 million plan to “improve” the place, which has several design flaws, but says she never received a response. “If this plan had been accepted, the Lachine plant could have been operational as expected by December 2022,” concludes Mr.me Dunglas.