QUEBEC - Two PQ government ministers have been contradicted by a document that surfaced Thursday confirming that former deputy transport minister Florent Gagné - now responsible for the trusteeship of Laval – failed to report a case of collusion to police.
PQ cabinet ministers Sylvain Gaudreault and Stéphane Bergeron had previously insisted that the Liberals were to blame in the affair.
But on Thursday, Liberal MNAs distributed a letter from Gagné, written in 2009 as a reply to Auditor General Renaud Lachance, who had criticized Gagne for failing to forward an internal transport department document detailing a case of collusion.
In the letter, dated 22 November 2009, Gagné exonerates the Liberals in the affair.
“I personally take responsibility for the decision I took not to send the file to the police or the Competition Bureau,” he wrote.
The affair began when Lachance – who now works on the Charbonneau Commission – issued a report on November 22, 2009 in which he asked why an apparent case of bid rigging from 2004 had never been addressed.
Gagné argued in his letter that he had insufficient information to report to the affair to police.
In spite of the revelation, Gaudreault maintained Thursday that Gagne is the right man to oversee Laval.
In November 2009, former Transport Minister Julie Boulet finally forwarded the report to police but a spokesperson for the ministry said Thursday that the Sûreté du Québec did not act on the report.
-With a report from The Canadian Press
