In the utmost secrecy, the Société québécoise des Infrastructures (SQI) has been waging a standoff in the civil courts for almost three years to recover funds embezzled through fraudulent acts of which it believes it was the victim. The SQI managed to obtain the files from UPAC, which conducted a decade-long investigation that ended without the filing of a criminal complaint. Superpowers condemned by the lawyers of eight people and/or companies involved.
The documents revealing this affair were partially released today after months of efforts by several media outlets, including Radio-Canada. Unusually, there is no trace of this extraordinary recourse in the public register of cases heard by the courts. So far everything has taken place behind closed doors at the Quebec courthouse.
This is a Norwich type query. It is an effective tool and an exceptional measure that allows a party that considers itself a victim of fraud, in this case the SQI, to use evidence collected during a police criminal investigation in a civil appeal.
The starting point of this affair is the report “Les Baux Cadeaux” broadcast by Enquête in November 2016. It revealed that Liberal Party fundraisers William Bartlett, Franco Fava and Charles Rondeau, as well as the former CEO of the SQI, Marc-André Fortier, had shared large sums of money in the renewal of leases and the sale of government buildings, particularly over the Switzerland and the Bahamas. At the time of our revelations, everyone had denied it.
In that report, a UPAC investigator described the scheme as one of the largest fraud cases at a state-owned company in Quebec and perhaps even the country. In this context, the former minister responsible for the SQI, Monique Jérôme-Forget, described the then board members of the state-owned company as a gang of villains.
In 2017 and 2018, Quebec’s Auditor General prepared two reports on the matter and concluded that the government had already lost at least $18 million on these transactions. This does not take into account that the SQI would have signed clauses that disadvantage the state when it comes to renting space in buildings that are sold to private owners.
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This is based on the 2016 Enquête report and the book PLQ inc. published in 2019 that the SQI had applied for and received permission from the court to access all relevant UPAC investigative documents to support possible prosecutions. Several judges have ordered in the last three years that the matter in particular be kept completely secret.
The proceedings suggest that eight people or companies are affected by the UPAC documents received from the SQI, as these parts are identified by the letters of the alphabet from D to K. Anything that identifies them is blacked out.
The defendants’ lawyers vigorously dispute the SQI’s actions and are calling for the orders allowing the state-owned company to obtain police evidence to be lifted. Among other things, they are outraged that this extraordinary trial took place without their presence, even though the court had appointed a lawyer to represent their interests. The anonymous parties question the impartiality of this court friend.
The SQI managed to convince the court that the essence of a Norwich-type application is to produce and execute without the knowledge of the suspects, in particular to avoid the destruction of evidence.