SNC-Lavalin and
the Charbonneau
Commission
- Pierre Chénier -
The current turmoil around SNC-Lavalin's corruption
reminds us that it is workers in Quebec and Canada who pay
the price for corporate and state corruption.
The case of SNC-Lavalin and the Charbonneau Commission
is
still fresh in peoples' minds. This commission was set up in 2011
by the Liberal government of Jean Charest, after years of
refusal to publicly discuss corruption involving large
construction and engineering companies in connection with the
financing of political parties. The official mandate of the
Charbonneau Commission was to eradicate collusion and corruption
in the awarding of public contracts in construction, to reveal
the possible links between this corruption and the financing of
political parties and the possible infiltration of the
construction industry by organized crime.
The corrupt activities of SNC-Lavalin, the largest
engineering and construction management company in Canada, were at
the centre of the Charbonneau Commission. Two aspects in
particular were noted by the Commission.
The first is the illegal financing by SNC-Lavalin of
municipal political parties (Union Montréal) and Quebec parties
(especially the Liberal Party, but also the Parti
Québécois) in
exchange for contracts from the City of Montreal and Quebec
government ministries. The law prohibits businesses (and unions) from
making financial
contributions to Quebec political parties.
All kinds of illegal tactics have been used by
SNC-Lavalin to circumvent this law, including having dozens of its
executives issue personal cheques to political parties, while the money
actually came from the company itself, as the company reimbursed its
executives with "bonuses" at the end of the year.
The Commission has estimated that from 1998 to 2010,
more than $1 million was illegally paid by SNC-Lavalin to the two
main Quebec political parties of the day. It was also revealed
during the hearings that SNC-Lavalin illegally provided $200,000
to the Union Montréal party to help it win the 2005 Montreal
municipal election. The company did so by paying a fake bill from
Union Montréal and by providing money in cash to the Montreal
party fundraiser. All this was done under the pretext that it was
"the price to pay for doing business" and that SNC-Lavalin had to
remain in the "market" for public contracts.
Document compiled by the Charbonneau Commission shows the money
SNC-Lavalin allegedly handed over to political parties.
The second case is the scandal of the McGill University
Health Centre (MUHC). The Commission disclosed the scheme by which
SNC-Lavalin paid bribes of $22.5 million to two senior MUHC officials
to win the $1.34 billion contract in 2010 for the new university
hospital, a public-private partnership (P3). The illegal monies were
paid to the two senior officials of the health centre through false
companies set up by them. One of the MUHC officials, Arthur Porter, by
the most wonderful coincidence, was made Chairman of the Security
Intelligence Review Committee by Prime Minister Stephen Harper also in
2010. The MUHC case has been characterized at hearings as the largest
corruption fraud in Canadian history. It should be noted that all the
so-called ethical rules surrounding the granting of public
infrastructure projects in public private partnerships have not
prevented this fraud.
SNC-Lavalin has not been prohibited from participating
in the
consortia of private companies that bid on public infrastructure
projects and this case was not used as the opportunity to
reassess P3 projects that naturally lend
themselves to
corruption and fraud involving private interests and their
political representatives. It should also be noted that
SNC-Lavalin, which obtained the construction contract for the new
Champlain Bridge, is known for its attacks on the health and
safety of construction workers and, by extension, of the public.
Construction workers have had to constantly fight the
company's violation of safety standards, particularly with regard
to crane operation, to which the government has turned a blind eye.
This is a clear cut case of corruption
and collusion between SNC-Lavalin and the state but the
Charbonneau Commission did not consider an investigation of these
activities to be within its mandate.
Workers Attacked in the Name of the Fight Against
Corruption
Yves Ouellet (at mic), then-president of FTQ Construction, defended the
struggles of construction workers against the Charbonneau Commission's
slanders that workers were using intimidation akin to corruption and
organized crime. The intention of this slander was to divert attention
from who is responsible for corruption and organized crime -- not the
workers but the collusion between governments and the big construction
companies.
In its assessment of the events addressed,
the
Charbonneau Commission extended the concept of corruption and
organized crime to workers' collectives and their allied
organizations that carry out concerted action to defend workers'
rights, which sometimes leads to the disruption of construction
site activities. The Commission insinuated that these
actions were similar to mafia activities. The Commission made
this assertion without even considering the purpose and reasons
for which the organized workers took these actions, the cause
they were defending and the result they sought to achieve. "Corruption"
has been equated with restricting the
so-called free market, the right of companies to operate sites as
they see fit, in pursuit of private profit, even if the health and
safety of workers and the public is threatened. In the voluminous
report of the Charbonneau Commission, not a single page
reveals the collusion between the government/public
authority and companies like SNC-Lavalin from the point of view
of the violation of the rights of workers and their health and
safety.
On the contrary, it is the workers and their defence
organizations that are accused of corruption and of activities
akin to those of organized crime, which the Commission calls
intimidation and collusion between workers.
That is why, in its recommendations, the Charbonneau
Commission proposed an amendment to the Act respecting labour
relations, vocational training and workforce management in the
construction industry (R-20 legislation). The amendment
changes the wording of the law from reference to the use of
"intimidation or threats to cause an obstruction" to
"intimidation or threats likely to cause an obstruction" and
anyone found guilty would be subject to huge
fines. The Charbonneau Commission also recommended that any union
representative found guilty
of violating these provisions would be prohibited from
representing the workers for five years. The Quebec government
was only too happy to implement this recommendation.
This is one of the ways that workers and their
organizations
pay the price for corruption between big business and the
state.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 7 - March 2, 2019
Article Link:
SNC-Lavalin and
the Charbonneau
Commission - Pierre Chénier
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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