Shady political funding practices went largely unpoliced in Quebec until after 2009, according to interim Chief Electoral Officer Lucie Fiset who took the stand at the Charbonneau Commission Monday.
Corporate political donations, as well as donations from individuals who donated under their names and were later refunded by companies, were not scrutinized by the Director General of Elections because the group believed that offering information and training should be its prime mission.
The admission startled Commissioner Renaud Lachance, who said that the DGE should have been more proactive in discouraging dodgy political donations.
“Those allegations first surfaced in the mid-1990s, so you thought about it for 15 years before concluding that something needs to be done. The allegations of corporate financing and name-lending schemes started long ago. We didn’t just invent those concepts here at the commission,” said Lachance.
The group was forced to redirect their efforts to a more coercive role after Benoît Labonté complained of corruption in party financing in Montreal politics in 2009.
The need for more policing was further reinforced by revelations at the provincial level, including declarations of questionable financing brought to light by Marc Bellemare, who briefly held the post of Justice Minister under Premier Charest.
Prosecutor Elizabeth Ferland offered more proof that the body ignored complaints of illegal donations by submitting a letter from former MNA Jean-Pierre Charbonneau who wrote the DGE in 2002 to complain about such practices.
Fiset said that the Director General of Elections did not suffer any budgetary shortage that would have prevented it from hiring more staff to devote their efforts at policing illegal contributions.
