Bill Clinton was on an official trip to Africa when a judge announced a stay of proceedings in one of the charges he had been dragging on since his years as governor of Arkansas. His office issued a terse statement about the justice that had triumphed. A camera captured him, through his hotel room window that night, dancing while beating a tambourine.
Notice to the paparazzi: a similar scene should be able to be captured these days through the windows of Jean Charest and his friend and fundraiser Marc Bibeau. Of course, we don’t want anyone to live eight years under the threat of criminal prosecution, and this state of affairs in itself may require a little farandole. It’s too long, even if Mr. Bibeau’s repeated appeals to have the evidence excluded count for a lot in this delay. But we should not wish, either, on any democratic society to feel deprived of having gone to the end of a great deal. Confidence in the system presupposes having at least the feeling, if not the certainty, that justice, or at least the appearance of justice, has been done.
The Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) announces that it has delegated to an eminent legal assembly the task of reviewing the accumulated evidence and determining whether there were either grounds for prosecution or a reasonable chance of convincing a judge or jury to convict defendants. The members of this committee are the only ones, with the investigators of the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC), to have in hand all the evidence. On the basis of their opinion, among others, UPAC is closing the file. Quebecers will never be able to draw their own conclusions on the merits of the case. It would have been better for the legal health of the nation, in my humble opinion, if a trial had been brought, the witnesses heard and contradicted, and the defendants ultimately acquitted—if that was the verdict—rather than than to find oneself in front of such a lamentable cul-de-sac.
The parlor lawyers that we are are reduced to asking questions that will remain unanswered. I listened these last days on Crave the excellent series Corruptionby director Sébastien Trahan, who synthesizes and completes, with ten years of hindsight, the work of the Charbonneau commission.
We see and hear the former president of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) Robert Benoit explain that Marc Bibeau told him straight out: “If you want to be named somewhere, you’d better pick up the money. Integrity, Benoit sent him for a walk.
This is bizarre because in section 121 of my Criminal Code I read that (1) “Everyone commits an offence” (d) “having or pretending to have influence with the government or with a minister of the government , or an official, demands, accepts or offers, or agrees to accept, directly or indirectly, for himself or for another person, a reward, an advantage or a benefit of any kind in return for collaboration , assistance, exercise of influence or act or omission”.
Mr. Bibeau’s lawyers fought hard so that we could not read a series of affidavits in which are related the declarations of the directors of engineering consulting firms which describe behaviors that seem to espouse what the Criminal Code prohibits.
Georges Dick, president of the firm RSW, provided a written statement where, according to the affidavit of the investigators, he testified that Mr. Bibeau “informed them that when the PLQ would be in power, that it would be able to influence the awarding of contracts by Hydro-Québec”. Oh good ? In addition, Mr. Bibeau “wanted RSW to give him the checks [de financement] to himself “. The VP of RSW, Claudio Vissa, is quoted in the affidavit as saying that Mr. Bibeau “told them that they provided less [de financement] than other engineering firms and that he could influence the contracts at Hydro-Quebec so that RSW would have less”. Mr. Vissa allegedly “construed this as intimidation”. His boss, Dick, write the investigators, “considered this to be influence peddling”. These two men may have thought that their testimony was as close to flagrante delicto as can be attested in court. They learned yesterday that the UPAC and the DPCP did not consider their testimonies sufficient to proceed.
In the affidavit concerning the president of TECSULT, Luc Benoît, Bibeau would have specified that he could “convince the minister to change his position concerning the Laval metro”, where TECSULT had an interest. But the UPAC apparently does not see how, with this testimony, to convince a jury that it is about influence peddling.
It is difficult to imagine today that these witnesses were victims of collective hallucination. Or is it rather the UPAC or the DPCP who are paralyzed by the fear of failure? Is the refusal to proceed due to the absence, among the prosecutors, of a person bold enough to face the ton of procedures and the decade of quibbles that the defense will mobilize? (If so, call Judge Charbonneau, perhaps she will agree to become a prosecutor again for the cause!) Is it because the charges that UPAC wanted to file cast too wide a net and she does not wish to withdraw? on minor counts?
But there. Messrs. Bibeau and Charest can now sleep peacefully. The biggest illegal fundraising scheme for a political party since Duplessis has been proven: the PLQ reimbursed half a million dollars in ill-gotten sums. We are now asked to conclude that this scheme had no captain or conductor. At most, perhaps, a tambourine player.
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