The leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec admits to having had suspicions of political control when the UPAC and its commissioner Robert Lafrenière arrested ex-minister Nathalie Normandeau on budget day 2016.
• To read also: Lafrenière was afraid to go “to pass the mop to the National Assembly”
• Read also: UPAC bosses suspected of serious misconduct
At the time, Dominique Anglade sat on the Council of Ministers and held the title of Minister of the Economy. And yet, a few days after the arrest of the former Liberal Minister of Municipal Affairs, his government reappointed Robert Lafrenière to his post as commissioner of the anti-corruption police force.
“The question, if it's political to make an arrest on budget day. You can't separate the two,” she admitted. "Obviously that raises questions, but you can't base yourself on suspicion, you have to base yourself on facts (...) There, what I can tell you is that it was the choice of the government at that time, with the information it had at the time."
According to legal documents released on Monday, the ex-UPAC boss is suspected of serious misconduct. Its senior management allegedly orchestrated information leaks to the media.
This is the reason why Nathalie Normandeau, then accused of corruption, obtained a stay of proceedings.
In June 2017, UPAC commissioner Robert Lafrenière launched the Project A investigation to find out who leaked information to the media about his organization's investigations, including the one that targeted Normandeau and Côté.
The BEI discovered that they came from Lafrenière himself, as well as his right-hand man André Boulanger and other UPAC executives.
Scandal
Today, liberal leader Dominique Anglade is completely questioning the usefulness and credibility of UPAC.
"It is clear that this does not meet what citizens would like to see from this institution," she said.
Solidarity Manon Massé called the new revelations about UPAC a "scandal". She believes that the police organization 2.0, which was reformed by the CAQ government, must now obtain concrete results.
"UPAC has not demonstrated that it could honorably, I would say, meet its responsibilities, that is to say, to assure the people of Quebec that corruption is not... .she is hunted down and she is penalized. She did not demonstrate that,” she said. "It's starting to be time for her to do that. There have been big changes in the last few months … And sincerely, I expect something else, in Quebec, than a police force that constantly investigates the police instead of investigating.”
Guilty Wanted
The leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, now expects that there are culprits in this file.
“I reiterate that it will take responsibility. We cannot, as we have seen in the past, close our eyes since in the end there is no one responsible, there is no one who pays the price, that is the trust in our institutions,” said PSPP.
