The anti-corruption commissioner, Frédérick Gaudreau, does not intend to apologize to former Prime Minister Jean Charest, who, according to justice, paid the price for a “gross mistake” on the part of the Permanent anti-corruption unit (UPAC).
In a judgment rendered in April, the Superior Court of Quebec harshly criticized the work of UPAC and ordered the State to pay $385,000 in compensation to Mr. Charest, in particular for the illegal disclosure of his personal information outside of the Mâchurer investigation into the illegal financing of the Liberal Party of Quebec.
Mr. Charest then demanded an apology from the government. The PLQ had broadened the request by demanding an act of contrition from UPAC.
At a press conference Tuesday morning, Commissioner Gaudreau said he “aligned himself” with the court’s decision. Does he intend to apologize? “The decision was made by the courts, so no,” he replied.
The case having been taken to court, there is no parallel to be made, according to him, with the case of former Liberal MP Guy Ouellette. UPAC apologized in 2021 for this story. Mr. Ouellette was arrested in 2017 by UPAC, but was never charged.
Civilian investigators
In a response in English, Mr. Gaudreau clarified that the setbacks surrounding the Mâchurer investigation “could not happen in our organization today.” UPAC hired its first cohort of “civilian” investigators in 2022-2023, who do not have to go through training and the patrol-gendarmerie function. UPAC has also been a full-fledged police force since 2018, and it no longer has to “borrow” resources from the Sûreté du Québec, nor store its information in its computer servers. Instead, she uses those from the Ministry of Public Security.
The report presented by Commissioner Gaudreau on Tuesday indicates that 259 people have been accused over the past five years following UPAC investigations. Of the number, 57 were convicted. “The accusations are from the last five years, but the convictions can result from investigations that date back more than five years, so we cannot make a correlation with the figures that are there,” qualified Mr. Gaudreau. “It is possible that in the accusations which are on the current table, there will be convictions which will take place in two or three years,” he added.
The commissioner also did not want to comment on a recommendation from the UPAC supervisory committee. The latter believes that all national police forces should be monitored like that of UPAC, otherwise the UPAC surveillance committee should be abolished. “This is the opinion of the monitoring committee and I obviously prefer to keep a reservation on this,” declared Mr. Gaudreau.
He also declared that UPAC was ready “to welcome other mandates” than that of the fight against corruption. His statement goes against the grain of a recommendation in the green paper on the police, which proposed integrating UPAC into a unit specializing in cybercrime and economic crimes.