Investissement Québec held several meetings at the chic Club St-James

Investissement Québec (IQ) spent more than $12,000 to hold six meetings of its board of directors at the chic Club St-James (CSJ) in Montreal from 2020 to 2022, a choice that raises governance questions, according to an expert .

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In February 2020, the state corporation paid more than $1,600 for a meeting attended by 11 directors.

Two bottles of Pétales d’Osoyoos wine and three bottles of L’Altro chardonnay at $69 each were served as well as three-course menus at $60 each, reveals an invoice made public through access to information .

Closed to the public

The St-James Club (CSJ) is a private club to which only its 600 members have access. The invoices for the six meetings, which total more than $12,000, are in the name of Guy LeBlanc, who served as CEO of the organization from April 2019 to January 2024.

To these costs was added the cost of IQ’s annual membership to the CSJ, which amounted to nearly $12,000 for the period from January 2020 to the end of 2023, specifies in Newspaper a spokesperson for the institution, Isabelle Fontaine.

The IQ council met three times at the CSJ in fall 2021. Cost for these three meetings: more than $5,900. According to IQ, the choice of the luxury establishment was then explained “by the need for space to ensure compliance with the health measures in force at that time”.

Then, in March 2022, the council held two other meetings at the CSJ at a cost of nearly $5,000. For these two meetings, the organization invokes the “dismantling of the Montreal offices”.

However, although IQ vacated its offices at 600 de la Gauchetière in February 2022, it still had space at the World Trade Center in Old Montreal.

“We understand that it is not at McDonald’s that we would hold a board meeting for such an important organization, but the fact remains that Investissement Québec has ample premises,” reacts Nicolas Gagnon of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

“During the pandemic, people stayed at home,” he recalls. Board meetings were held on Teams, people celebrated Christmas on Zoom… I think they could have avoided a little embarrassment.”

Saidatou Dicko, professor at UQAM and specialist in governance, questions the judgment of IQ leaders.

Really necessary?

“When it comes to governance, it is always better, obviously, to take care of our actions, but also our appearances,” she says. What are we doing, where are we doing it? At first glance, one could say that it is simply a rental of space for meetings, but was it really necessary to go there?

The expert emphasizes that when private sector leaders are appointed to a state-owned company, they must “adapt their behavior to the public nature of the organization in which they find themselves.”

“It’s still worrying if we don’t ask ourselves questions about our actions as an institution of a public nature,” adds M.^me Dicko. Here, it’s just meetings. Imagine other, more strategic actions, for example investments.”

From 2020 to April 2022, Monique Leroux, Jean St-Gelais and Louise Sanscartier succeeded each other as chair of the IQ board.

Among the 12 current members of the board, we include Marie-Soleil Tremblay, appointed in July 2020. M^me Tremblay is a professor at ENAP, specializing in “governance of public companies”.