The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) authorities circumvented the rules by organizing sham competitions for the appointment of high-ranking officials, the public protector concluded at the end of an investigation.
• Also read: Allegations of favoritism and fake competitions in the SQ that Ombudsman is investigating
In his annual report filed on Thursday, Quebec Ombudsman Marc-André Dowd recalled that he opened an investigation after receiving disclosures that showed a “culture of favoritism” in hiring and promotion processes at the SQ, according to Le Journal de Montréal reported in March 2021.
“The evidence collected shows that in 2015, the Sûreté du Québec changed its human resources policy and lowered certain requirements for leadership positions compared to the previous version of the same policy,” the report says.
The SQ also circumvented the rules in other ways, by appointing people to “frequent and excessively long-term temporary positions” to give them a “clear advantage” when the competition opened.
People with the required qualifications had also been approached, only to be told to withdraw their applications, Mr Dowd said as he launched his report.
The Protector’s investigation also found that senior SQ officials were informed by staff that the selection competitions would not be conducted according to the rules, but they consciously chose to turn a deaf ear.
“Nothing was done to check this deviation from the rules. The organization also failed to take into account various internal surveys conducted over several years regarding the staffing process,” Mr. Dowd wrote.
“The managers responsible for competitions have therefore clearly and repeatedly acted to the detriment of good human resources practices […]. “Ultimately, these measures favored managers who did not always have the necessary skills or who did not meet the criteria set out in the personnel policy,” concluded the protector.
The public protector’s report does not name those responsible for implementing this system of favoritism, but the change in the SQ’s hiring policy came under the leadership of Martin Prud’homme, the current deputy director general of the City of Montreal of the national police.
“No one is being targeted by name in this investigation,” Mr. Dowd replied when a journalist asked him whether Mr. Prud’homme and his government were directly affected by the investigation. “The entity in question is the Sûreté du Québec as an organization,” he added, recalling that the “bad practices” in question had taken place over several years.