The Commission’s objective with this report was to recall the need to properly train municipal elected officials on their role and responsibilities, particularly in matters of interference.
The report presents cases of interference by elected officials in matters that fall under the municipal administration, very often out of a desire to do the right thing, but still prohibited.
$305,000 fraud
However, it is the counter-example, that of Saint-Simon-de-Rimouski, which is the most striking. The widely publicized case concerns that of the general director, Fanny Beaulieu Saint-Laurent, who is suspected of having embezzled some $305,000 from the municipality for her own benefit. She is also facing a series of accusations, including fraud and breach of trust on the part of a civil servant following an investigation by the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC). Apprehended in September 2024, she is due to appear later in October.
We can imagine the impact of such fraud, which would have been committed in 2021 and 2022, on the finances of a municipality whose budget is just under $1.5 million.
The Commission’s report notes that according to the investigation by the Directorate of Investigations and Prosecutions in Municipal Integrity (DEPIM), “the former mayor and members of the council regularly asked questions to the general management about the finances of the Municipality, which responded by affirming that “everything was fine”. However, council members were unable to obtain the necessary documentation to confirm his claims.”
The mayor feared interference
The former mayor had asked if he had the power to force the general management to send him the documents required to validate the information transmitted. However, he would have been told no and that such an attempt would be interference.
The DEPIM considers on the contrary that the mayor has the duty to ensure “that the revenues of the municipality are collected and spent according to the law” and that he must be able to access “all the documents of the municipality and oblige any official or employed to provide him with any document or information.”
Without holding the same powers, municipal councilors are entitled to “any documentation useful for decision-making […] at the latest 72 hours before the time fixed for the start of the meeting” of the municipal council and that “it is the responsibility of the general management to ensure the availability of the documentation”.
This is what happens when it comes to the power of municipal elected officials to act without exposing themselves to being accused of interference.
Proven interference
Where the interference manifests itself is in cases like those of four municipalities which were also the subject of investigations by the DEPIM which concluded that elected officials had actually transgressed the rules surrounding their functions.
Some of these examples may seem trivial, or even a little funny, but they nonetheless remain misconduct according to the Cities and Towns Act and the Act respecting ethics and professional conduct in municipal matters.
In some of the cases, the elected officials were members of committees and, as a result, believed themselves authorized to intervene, which was not the case: these committees have an advisory function and not intervention.
In the Canton de Havelock municipality, in Montérégie, the mayor and three councilors, who formed a “roads” county, set themselves the task of monitoring the roads and were reimbursed for their travel. However, DEPIM decides, this constitutes interference since this task falls to municipal employees.
Volunteer landscaping
In the municipality of Paroisse de Sainte-Justine-de-Newton, again in Montérégie, the DEPIM received a complaint to the effect that a municipal councilor “exceeded the exercise of his duties by carrying out a development himself landscaping on municipal land”, and this, on a voluntary basis. Even if the DEPIM concludes that there was interference since this is still a task reserved for municipal employees, it “cannot conclude that there was a reprehensible act due to the absence of serious consequences or serious harm” .
In Lac-des-Plages, in Outaouais, the DEPIM notes that 16 committees were formed with “responsibles” for “files” when it should rather have been a question of “committee or commission members whose sole role is to study questions and recommend positions. A request for association funding was thus processed and rejected by one of these “file managers” and the whole thing was treated as a refusal from the municipality. Again, the DEPIM concluded “that there was a reprehensible act committed against the Municipality due to the real consequence of the action on the financing of the association’s activity”.
A mayor who leads the way
Finally, the last case noted in the report is that of Saint-Aimé-du-Lac-des-Îles, in the Laurentians, where “the mayor of the municipality would have incurred expenses on behalf of the latter and he would have interrupted carrying out work on a few occasions. The DEPIM notes certain irregularities in the purchase of a truck, without seeing it as a serious problem, but judges much more harshly the obtaining by the mayor of a promise of sale for the purchase of a structure for $115,000 having to cover a municipal skating rink “without involving the municipal administration or obtaining a prior resolution from the council”.
“In our opinion,” writes DEPIM, “the mayor could not and should not take unilateral steps to obtain a promise of sale for the Municipality. (…) It seems that due to the product targeted by this approach, the Municipality failed to proceed with the acquisition of this structure while respecting the acquisition rules established by law (since it) was necessary to proceed by request for public tender when the amount exceeded the sum of $101,100.”
DEPIM considers that “the acquisition was made irregularly and intends to submit this file to the Public Procurement Authority”.
Worse still, investigators note that “the structure has lost value over the years and storage costs, approximately $20,000, have been incurred by the Municipality. All of these costs were of no use to the population since the structure was never used.”
The need for good training
In conclusion, the Municipal Commission believes that the DEPIM has demonstrated “a certain recurrence of the problem of interference within the municipalities of Quebec”.
“The investigations, it is specified, demonstrate a misunderstanding of the advisory role of said committees as well as the fact that appointment to a committee does not imply individual responsibility for its members.”
Finally, it is argued, “the desire expressed by certain members of the council to want to carry out tasks in order to reduce costs for the municipality or help the administration, to have more information on municipal issues or even to assisting citizens with their requests does not compensate for the harmful effect of interference on municipal organization. In fact, interference has a destabilizing effect, which can have an impact on the working climate and produce a demobilizing effect on people employed by the municipality.”
