(Ottawa) The Bloc Québécois demanded on Tuesday that the Trudeau government reveal all the contracts related to Roxham Road after Ottawa had revealed the day before, after months of refusal, to have disbursed 28 million for leases concluded with companies of a Liberal donor, Pierre Guay.
Posted at 3:38 p.m.
During question period, the Bloc House Leader, Alain Therrien, wondered whether the contracts with Mr. Guay’s companies, “those of which the media know of the existence”, are only “the tip of the the iceberg”.
“We know that there are others, contracts, in particular for hotels, summarized Mr. Therrien. If the government has nothing to hide, why is it refusing to disclose all of the Roxham Road contracts? »
Much like in a press scrum minutes earlier, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not committed in his response to releasing all of the contracts.
Rather, he repeated what had been said to the House of Commons Ethics Committee the day before: it was public servants who decided to enter into the contracts and it was the Border Services Agency that contacted the owner of the lands.
“This contract included the only land possible in the circumstances and the Border Services Agency was already using it to intercept and process people crossing irregularly,” said Mr. Trudeau. Leases were negotiated on a fair value basis to obtain a competitive price. »
The $28 million figure is in a document sent Monday to members of the ethics committee minutes before it is scheduled to hear from witnesses in its investigation into expenses related to Roxham Road.
According to the Elections Canada database, Mr. Guay gave thousands of dollars in contributions to the Liberal Party of Canada, but also, to a lesser extent, to the Conservative Party of Canada when he was in power.
During his testimony, Mr. Guay assured that he had never solicited or maintained relations with “any politician whatsoever”. He also said he has “nothing to hide” when questioned by committee members whether he was open to disclosing more details about the leases that tie his businesses to the government.
Radio-Canada recently revealed that, according to its compilation, Ottawa has paid more than half a billion in public funds to reimburse costs paid by Quebec or to pay suppliers.
With information from Emilie Bergeron, The Canadian Press