Reports that former UPAC commissioner Robert Lafrenière ‘orchestrated a system of leaks’ of sensitive information to advance his personal interests led to a halt to the legal process against the former deputy prime minister Nathalie Normandeau in 2020, reveal new documents made public on Monday.
Posted at 2:36 p.m.
Some leaks would have been “synchronized with pivotal dates on the political agenda of the National Assembly” to help Robert Lafrenière obtain a new mandate at the head of the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC) and promote the transformation of the organization in a specialized police force.
This is what the judge of the Court of Quebec André Perreault wrote in his decision of September 2020 ordering the cessation of the judicial process for unreasonable delays in the case of Mr.me Normandeau, the former vice-president of the Roche firm Marc-Yvan Côté and other individuals accused of corruption, breach of trust and fraud.
Part of the judgment and the exhibits filed during the proceedings were covered by a publication ban which has just been lifted following requests by several media, including The Press.
In interview with The Press last Thursday, Robert Lafrenière denied the allegations and promised to defend his reputation. “At no time did I orchestrate any leak whatsoever to advance my personal interests,” he said.
He deplores that the leak of confidential UPAC documents into the public sphere has “scraped » one of the biggest investigations into suspicions of corruption in politics. He also maintains that the arrest of Mme Normandeau was perfectly justified.
Mr. Lafrenière and the other UPAC leaders involved were not heard by Judge Perreault to give their version of this saga and are not the subject of any charges to date.
To divert attention
In his judgment, Judge Perreault subscribes to a theory formulated by the Bureau of Independent Investigations (BEI), which has been carrying out an investigation called “Project Oath” for nearly four years on the leaks at UPAC and on the way in which the management of the organism reacted to it.
According to this theory expressed in October 2019 by an investigator from the BEI, Commissioner Robert Lafrenière, his head of investigations, Inspector André Boulanger, his spouse and assistant, Lieutenant Caroline Grenier-Lafontaine, and investigator Vincent Rodrigue were prime suspects in leaking sensitive information to UPAC. They would then have launched an internal investigation into the leaks, dubbed “Project A”, which would have diverted attention by targeting other people, including Liberal MP Guy Ouellette, arrested in 2017 and never charged.
“The theory behind Project Oath is that André Boulanger and he [Robert Lafrenière] participated in controlled leaks. […] Project A was initiated when Mr. Lafrenière knew that it was UPAC management that was responsible for it. André Boulanger, Caroline Grenier-Fontaine and Vincent Rodrigue instrumentalized the Project A investigation to thwart the course of justice. As for Martin Prud’homme [directeur général de la Sûreté du Québec au moment des faits]at the time, it was believed that he had been able to hinder the investigation of Project A, which would later prove to be inaccurate, ”wrote in particular Judge Perreault, quoting a BEI investigator, Michel Doyon.
At the end of his judgment, however, Judge Perreault stated that “it may very well be that the Serment investigation evolves and that the evidence differs in the medium to long term”.
He also indicates that he does not have to be convinced “beyond any reasonable doubt” that the persons mentioned have indeed committed these actions: at the time he renders his decision, the BEI’s investigation tends to show that misconduct by the direction of the UPAC were hidden from the defendants, that the judicial system was directed on false tracks, all having contributed to the unreasonable delays which justify a stop of the legal process against Nathalie Normandeau and her co-defendants, explains the magistrate.
Ripe to “pass the mop”
In 2019, the BEI had identified 54 media publications revealing information from UPAC investigations and 37 leaks from 8 different investigation files.
The BEI attributes three of these leaks to André Boulanger, six to Robert Lafrenière, eight to Anne-Frédérick Laurence, former head of communications at UPAC, and two to Michel Pelletier, former associate commissioner at UPAC, for a total of 19. So there were 18 orphan leaks left in 2019.
Reading the documents, we understand that Robert Lafrenière was suspected for a leak intended to put pressure on the prosecutors of the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP), because he would have been dissatisfied with their “slowness”, and another concerning an investigation into the Société immobilière du Québec and which was the subject of a report on Radio-Canada in 2018.
Regarding the leak intended to put pressure on the DPCP, a lawyer made a statement to the BEI according to which Mr. Lafrenière had told her that if she revealed this, “he would be dead” and ripe “to pass the mop to The national assembly “.
According to the documents, Robert Lafrenière would also have met at least two journalists at his home.
As for André Boulanger, to prevent the UPAC investigation into Mâchurer’s leaks on the financing of the Liberal Party of Quebec from being exposed, he met a journalist from The Press during the summer of 2017.
During an August 2017 meeting with subordinates, he also reportedly confessed to having made a controlled leak to put pressure on DPCP prosecutors, but asked that no one talk about it. This admission would have caused deep unease among the members of his team.
“From that point, there were a lot of reactions and the whole thing had just changed our vision of the investigation. Boulanger admits to leaks when our investigation is precisely about leaks, ”investigator Louis Dufour told his BEI counterparts, according to documents filed in court.
Tensions in the team
The BEI documents filed during the proceedings of the Normandeau affair allow us for the first time to have an overview of the investigation carried out by the UPAC into the leaks of sensitive documents from Mâchurer, which ended in arrest of MP Guy Ouellette.
Reading them, we can draw the conclusion that from the start, in June 2017, the investigation faced several pitfalls. On more than one occasion, investigators confided to their BEI colleagues that they were not comfortable “that UPAC is investigating UPAC”.
Two investigators from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) left the team with a bang, in particular because they would have preferred, like others, that the investigation be given to an independent police force or to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
A prosecutor and investigators thought that the director of the SQ, Martin Prud’homme, who had contact with Guy Ouellette during the investigation, should have been included in the targets.
The micromanagement alleged by some police officers, the fact that André Boulanger was the spouse of his assistant, Caroline Grenier-Lafontaine, and Guy Ouellette’s extensive network of contacts also caused tensions within the team.
Inspector André Boulanger, Lieutenant Caroline Grenier-Lafontaine and Investigator Vincent Rodrigue, who were considered suspects by the BEI in October 2019, declined an interview request from The Press.
To date, the BEI Oath investigation continues.
In the documents filed in court, we learn in particular that:
- UPAC analyst Éric Desautels told BEI investigators that some of the leaks had “obvious potential links” to MP Guy Ouellette, former police officer Richard Despatie and active police officer Stéphane Bonhomme of UPAC. He believes, however, that no connection between these three people can be made for other leaks. He deduces that the leaks came from more than one person;
- Guy Ouellette’s telephone records revealed that he had been in contact, during the UPAC investigation into the leaks, with 25 to 30 active police officers, including Martin Prud’homme;
- an investigator of the Joug and Lierre projects on the financing of the PLQ and suspected of leaks was uncomfortable with the arrest of Nathalie Normandeau, whom he considered a victim;
- the former prosecutor of the Charbonneau commission Me Denis Gallant told an investigator of having received an offer to become commissioner at UPAC, that the contract was even faxed to him while he was in Florida, but that he had to tear it up at the last minute when the government has decided to reappoint Robert Lafrenière to his post.
To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.
With the collaboration of Vincent Larouche, The Press