The Commissioner of the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC), Frédérick Gaudreau, believes that a change of name, of ” branding To use his expression, would allow his organization to restore its image. It would be using a very superficial means to resolve a fundamental problem.
After tabling the 2021-2024 Strategic Plan last month in the National Assembly, Frédérick Gaudreau presented Tuesday the 2020-2021 annual management report of the famous investigation unit created ten years ago.
The least we can say is that this autonomous police force has had its share of failures. The last in line is the abandonment of the proceedings against the former mayor of Terrebonne, Jean-Marc Robitaille, and three of his alleged accomplices, abandonment decreed by judge Nancy McKenna who hardly appreciated that two investigators of the UPAC, whose number two in the organization, Sylvain Baillargeon, lies to him in the face.
When he was appointed two years ago, Frédérick Gaudreau set himself the goal that UPAC would regain the public’s trust. Two years later, the Commissioner speaks of a “crisis of confidence”.
Whistleblowers are becoming rarer. According to the Strategic Plan, denunciations went from 874 to 332 in four years. UPAC promises to do more to encourage reporting of wrongdoing by using social media and being more prominent in the public eye, for good reasons, not bad ones.
The Minister of Public Security, Geneviève Guilbault, continues to reject the idea that is circulating of integrating UPAC into the Sûreté du Québec (SQ). “We need an organization that fights full time against corruption in Quebec,” she said Tuesday.
The minister recalled that the appointment of the current commissioner was approved by the deputies, as required by the provisions of the law that the Caquista government had adopted. In addition, UPAC no longer depends on service contracts signed with the SQ to compose its teams of investigators. Last August, the regulations were finally adopted to allow the organization to proceed with its own hires. A first cohort of investigators, with specialized training provided by the National Police Academy, will join the organization this fall. A second, which includes civilians, will do the same early next year.
For the minister, the UPAC must be allowed time to deploy its activities with the new means that have been provided to it. The former director of communications at the Coroner’s Office insisted on the importance for UPAC to communicate better: to better explain the reasons for its disappointments and to better showcase its successes.
It is still necessary that the balance sheet of UPAC does not become weighed down by aborted prosecutions and police blunders. No doubt you have to be patient. But better communication will not be enough. It is the quality of its survey methods and, in general, its efficiency that will lead UPAC to obtain results which will justify its existence.