Coderre changes course, reveals his revenues and dealings with real estate giant and other companies

Montreal -

After he was outed as having worked -- until just a few months ago -- for a real estate behemoth, mayoral candidate Denis Coderre unveiled a list of private-sector clients and revealed to voters he earned more than 450,000 last year. 

It's a change of course for Coderre, who on Tuesday again refused to unveil his client list, saying he was bound by confidentiality agreements.

His opponent, Valérie Plante, published her tax return on the weekend and pressured Coderre to do the same. In the last election, Coderre also made financial disclosures.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Ensemble Montreal leader published a list of clients he did business with from 2018 to 2021 and disclosed his statements of revenue for 2020.

The documents, in the form of a chart in a PDF file, show he took in $458,263 in revenue last year and paid $187,850 in federal and provincial taxes. 

They also reveal his business dealings with eight companies over the last three years. They include real-estate giant Cogir, Eurostar, FIA, the Jewish Hospital Foundation, Omega Park, Stingray, Studio Félix & Paul, and one undisclosed Quebec company that he said requested to remain confidential.

The company has said it will disclose itself to the city's ethics office "if Mr. Coderre is elected."

"Projet Montréal tries to taint my integrity in order to distract voters from the real issues on which they will vote the dismal state of public finances, the growing insecurity in our streets, the congestion that affects thousands of people daily, and so many 'others,'" Coderre said in a statement.

He had maintained that because he's been working as a consultant since losing the 2017 election, he didn't have the option to disclose his financial situation anymore.

When running in 2017, “it was my salary,” he said on Tuesday. “Now I'm a consultant and I have to respect the law. I have to respect the agreement in the contract that I'm signing.”

La Presse first reported Wednesday morning that one of Coderre's recent clients was COGIR, the real-estate giant that owns scores of condos, retirement homes and commercial properties in Quebec and Ontario.

Coderre disclosed that he worked for COGIR from 2019 to March 2021. The company's management told La Presse that Coderre is not bound by a confidentiality clause.

Coderre's contract involved "international development," according to the report. COGIR also has some property in the United States.

However, CTV News has confirmed that starting in May 2019, Coderre had spoken to the organization that stages the Formula One and Formula E races.
 

Here's the full list of Denis Coderre's business activities (2018-2021) 

 

With files from CTV Montreal's Billy Shields.