MONTREAL - Montreal's political scene was still reeling on Wednesday after a series of pre-dawn raids 24 hours earlier targeted 15 on the island's North Shore and ended with Tony Accurso in police custody.
The controversial head of the Accurso construction empire, one of Quebec's largest recipients of public construction contracts, was nabbed by the Surete du Quebec's permanent anti-corruption unit.
"This is a major development, the arrest in particular of Mr. Accurso," started Alex Norris, a Project Montreal councillor who represents the Mile-End.
"There are a number of links with the Tremblay administration here, but the most important one is Mr. Accurso himself, who has won hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts from the Tremblay administration and who has had significant political ties with that administration," said Norris, who has been particularly critical of Mayor Gerald Tremblay.
The city countered, by saying despite the allegation, it has nothing to hide.
"The city has always been transparent in its dealings with UPAC, which has had access to the information it requested, and was able to speak with everyone in the city it wished to meet," said Richard Deschamps, vice-president of the executive committee for the city of Montreal.
Norris cited a $355-million water meter contract that was cancelled in 2009 after the city's auditor general found serious problems and links between Accurso and the mayor's right hand, Frank Zampino.
One of Accurso's companies, Dessau, was awarded the contract after Zampino took a vacation on the construction magnate's luxury yacht in the Caribbean.
"So this again was one of the early indications that there was really a system of corruption out there," said Hubert Bauch, The Gazette's chief editorial writer.
Corruption is all over the province, he added.
"The system is that companies give favours to people – either bureaucrats or politicians – it's not really specifically a Montreal problem," said Bauch.
Meantime, the city said it has no current plans to do halt any work with Accurso.
"The most important word is ‘if.' We don't know that yet, so we're going to let the course of actions take place and we're going to see what's going on after," said Deschamps.
One of those arrested, Jacques Audette, a prominent lawyer, also had dealings with the Tremblay administration, including organizing the mayor's ball.
Deschamps said the city will no longer be doing business with Audette.
The main opposition party, Louise Harel's Vision Montreal, was also tarred by links with Accurso.
"What this underlines is just how important it is to reduce the role of money in municipal politics," said Norris. "We know that political donations were part of the corruption scheme uncovered by the UPAC squad."
