The former managers of the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) looked for a mole internally when they learned that our Bureau of Investigation was preparing to reveal details concerning their expenses.
• Read also: Restaurant meals at $158 and $170 billed to taxpayers by former OCPM president Dominique Ollivier
The secretary general of the OCPM, Guy Grenier, laid off a few weeks ago, even considered calling on an external person to investigate the origin of the leak.
“I’m digging to understand how the bills came out of our house. I will have to ask Annie to investigate,” he wrote this fall to President Isabelle Beaulieu, in a series of text messages obtained thanks to the law on access to documents.
We tried to find out if it was his partner, Annie, a computer specialist, but Mr. Grenier did not respond to our messages.
Screenshot of message exchanges between Guy Grenier and Isabelle Beaulieu.
Document provided by the OCPM.
Before the publication of our reports, the two ex-leaders wondered how we could have known the names of the restaurants they had frequented extensively in recent months.
“Luke [Doray] thinks they got their hands on our credit card bills. […] An internal source at home or in the city,” Mr. Grenier wrote at the end of September.
- Listen to Luc Lavoie’s analysis on Yasmine Abdelfadel’s microphone via QUB :
What Mme Beaulieu replies: “Of course,” before naming one of her employees whom she suspects of being behind the leak.
Isabelle Beaulieu (left-wing messages) suspects an OCPM employee, whose name we have redacted, of being at the origin of a leak of documents, in an exchange with Guy Grenier (right-wing messages).
Document provided by the OCPM.
“But who wants to harm Luc?”, she asks herself.
“And D.O. [Dominique Ollivier]», adds Guy Grenier.
However, it was not an employee of the OCPM who gave us the credit card statements, but rather the City of Montreal in response to a request for access to information.
A few weeks later, Mme Beaulieu suspects another employee.
No answers
Even in the heart of the turmoil, the ex-president sought to find “the source”.
On November 6, the day Valérie Plante requested an investigation from the auditor general into the management of the OCPM, Guy Grenier, then at a conference in Brazil, sought to find out how the employees were doing.
“We chatted [sic]. XXX was on the verge of tears. He’s not the source [sic]», replies Mme Beaulieu.
On November 15, this time, she suspected someone at the City of Montreal of having leaked a document that had been submitted with the budget: “someone is leaking our stuff to the City,” she wrote to Mr. Grenier.
A former minister to the rescue
The OCPM called on the former Minister of Education and Families in the Couillard government, Sébastien Proulx, in particular for “crisis management” advice in the fall.
“Sébastien Proulx comes from text [sic] that he leaves the meeting and gets ready to read all the emails,” wrote Isabelle Beaulieu to Guy Grenier on October 12 after our team’s unforeseen visit to their office.
Mr. Proulx is a lawyer for the GBV law firm. Contacted by our Investigation Office, he confirmed that the firm did have OCPM as a client, but that the file was mainly the responsibility of his colleague Charles Caza, also at GBV.
The OCPM disbursed at least $11,583 in public funds to GBV for “crisis management advice” and to respond to some of our requests for access to information, reveals a list of invoices produced by the City from Montreal.
More money
But at a certain point, the Office lacked the funds to afford such services.
At the beginning of November, Mme Beaulieu writes to Mr. Grenier that she is also receiving “help” from two people whose names have been redacted. “I told XXX that we didn’t have any money. He helps me too. Pro Bono [sic]! And XXX too. “Those are nice guys,” she adds.
The new president of the OCPM, Philippe Bourke, affirms that he is not able to separate the fees for crisis management from the total invoices.
However, he confirms that former managers Isabelle Beaulieu and Guy Grenier spent $4,605 in legal fees to take steps to deny us access to their employment contracts.
After Mr. Grenier’s departure, all the documents were finally sent to us.