Much worse than an oyster supper in Paris

A $347 oyster dinner in Paris to celebrate a birthday. $900 headphones and three $20,000 TV screens. Trips with a blurred lens to Mozambique, Australia, the Netherlands, Brazil, Morocco, Switzerland, Tunisia…

In this scandal which is shaking the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM), the most shocking thing is not that Dominique Ollivier and those who succeeded him squandered taxpayers’ money. It’s more that their lavish spending has been authorized for almost 10 years without anyone lifting a finger.

Aren’t there directives to limit the representation costs of employees of paramunicipal organizations?

Isn’t there someone somewhere who checks these expenses and makes sure they are reasonable and well-founded?

Obviously, the meshes of the surveillance net are too wide, which undermines the general public’s confidence in the entire municipal sector, and not just the OCPM.

The resignation of M^me Ollivier therefore does not resolve anything. Of course, she had no choice, she had to leave her position as number two in the City of Montreal. Her excesses during the time she was president of the OCPM stripped her of all credibility as a rigorous manager, while the City will table a budget this Wednesday that will increase residential taxes by 4.9%, a 10-year high.

Moreover, it is inconceivable that the new president of the OCPM, Isabelle Beaulieu, and the general secretary, Guy Grenier, will remain in office, they who happily dipped into the candy dish. The fact that they cling without any embarrassment to their functions is an affront to Mayor Valérie Plante, who asked for their resignation in very clear terms.

But in any case, these resignations will not be enough to restore the confidence of citizens, who have the right to wonder if the OCPM is only the tip of the iceberg.

All in all, the OCPM is a small organization with a small budget. But there are many other paramunicipal entities which generate big money while enjoying great independence.

Who tells us that their expenses are reasonable?

At the City of Montreal, executives are entitled to official expenses varying between $2,500 and $7,000 per year, depending on the position. Their directives do not prevent them from going to the restaurant only with colleagues – as was regularly done at the OCPM –, provided that the expenses are incurred “for the promotion of the interests of the City”.

But in November, the City eliminated all expenses such as travel and other activities not related to essential services, which is a minimum in our difficult economic context.

There is no reason why the City’s rules should not also be imposed on paramunicipal organizations.

Currently, they have their own governance structure, which can lead to abuses if the organizational culture is too lax, as we saw at the OCPM.

In addition, Quebec has relaxed the rules for monitoring these organizations, with Bill 155 adopted in 2018. In cities with 100,000 inhabitants, verification can now be delegated to an external firm, unless the general auditor (VG ) deems it appropriate to do so himself.

In Montreal, the AG continues to audit the Société de transport de Montréal, the Société du parc Jean-Drapeau, the Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal and the Sustainable Mobility Agency.

But he no longer sticks his nose in the OCPM books. The same goes for the Montreal Municipal Housing Office, the Montreal Arts Council, BIXI Montreal, the Taxi Bureau and the Montreal Intercultural Council, to name just a few.

Obviously, no auditor checks each invoice one by one, when it comes to small amounts. Instead, we proceed by sampling. But the accumulation of expenses at the OCPM should have sounded the alarm.

It is not normal that it required an investigation by Montreal Journal to bring these abuses to light.

And again, we wonder why the requested documents were redacted before being given to journalists. For transparency, you will have to iron.

The agglomeration council has set up a secretariat which makes it possible to obtain information on the paramunicipal organizations under its authority. Such a secretariat would be very useful to obtain information on a host of other organizations like the OCPM which balk when a request is presented to them directly.

These OCPM expenses cast serious doubt on the control of the expenses of all paramunicipal organizations in Montreal and elsewhere. It will take a lot of cleaning for the citizens to digest this oyster supper.