The mayor of Laval is so uncomfortable with his police department’s purchase of expensive electric cars that he considered returning them to the dealership.
Monday morning, Mayor Stéphane Boyer had a hard time defending the $2.4 million in public funds spent by the Laval Police Service (SPL) to purchase 25 Ford Mustang Mach-Es as well as charging stations, at time when the City says it is seriously lacking money to finance public transportation.
It was our Bureau of Investigation which highlighted these expenses in reports published in recent weeks.
“It’s certain that I wasn’t comfortable with all that,” said the mayor in an interview with host Paul Arcand, on 98.5 FM.
“I asked myself last week when there were all the articles, are we not reselling, are we not giving instructions to resell the cars?” continued Mr. Boyer .
“But selling them at a loss, I’m not sure that’s the best option either,” he added.
We see here several of the Ford Mustang Mach-Es purchased by the Laval police.
Photo from Archives, AGENCE QMI
No report
One of the cars purchased by the City, without a call for tenders, is a high-performance GT model that cost nearly $100,000. The vehicle was used for a few months by the director of the SPL Pierre Brochet, so that he could go to work.
The City justified this purchase by saying it wanted to evaluate the performance and autonomy of the vehicle in anticipation of purchasing other examples.
However, the head of public affairs for the City of Laval, Philippe Déry, admitted to our Bureau of Investigation that the City did not have “a detailed report on the use of the vehicle during this phase [de tests]”.
Photo Pierre-Paul Poulin
“It’s certain that I’m not comfortable with this issue, but hey, sometimes we make mistakes in life. It’s going to be “lesson learned” [leçon apprise] for the next time,” concluded the mayor Monday morning.
They cry famine
Remember that the Laval Municipal Council unanimously asked the City’s General Auditor to investigate this matter last week.
On April 4, Stéphane Boyer and other mayors, including his colleagues from Montreal and Longueuil, Valérie Plante and Catherine Fournier, wrote to the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, to request “a substantial increase in the registration tax “.
The mayors affirm that this increase imposed on motorists in the Montreal region could make up part of the shortfall of public transport organizations in their territories.
