Martin C. Barry

Action Laval, the official opposition party in Laval city council, was heavily criticized during the Aug. 8 council meeting by partisans of the governing Mouvement Lavallois as well as the Parti Laval, which is the “unofficial” opposition.

Abuse alleged

Both parties allege that over the last few council meetings, Action Laval has been abusing the right of citizens to ask questions during question period by systematically sending Action Laval election candidates to the microphone, cutting into the amount of question period time available for regular residents.

According to Parti Laval leader Michel Trottier, Action Laval “monopolized 25 of the 90 minutes available to citizens once a month,” he said during the council members’ period for making statements. “So I would just like to say that it would be important to respect that period reserved for citizens 90 minutes each month. It’s a question of respect. That’s all.”

Mayor deflects criticism

Despite the admonitions, again this month a succession of Action Laval candidates came up to the microphone to raise questions on a variety of issues. The party’s leader, Jean-Claude Gobé, was among the first people to come up to the microphone.

After criticizing Mayor Marc Demers for his “lack of influence and lack of credibility with the provincial government” in a number of dossiers, Demers fired back with both barrels.

“With comments like that, it seems very apparent that the electoral campaign time is approaching,” said the mayor, while maintaining that over the past few council meetings, Gobé spent his time at the microphone talking, but without asking very specific questions.

Party reacts to criticism

In a statement Action Laval issued following the council meeting, the party defended its tactics, claiming the mayor “bullies the candidates of Action Laval,” while questioning Action Laval’s motives for asking questions.

“Tonight, at City Council meeting, Mayor Demers and Independent Councilor Michel Trottier criticized Laval residents for asking questions at the city council on the pretext that they are also candidates for the upcoming election,” said the opposition party, while adding that Gobé “rejects Demers’ antidemocratic reaction.”

“Marc Demers used his role as mayor to ridicule his opponents,” said Gobé. “It is totally inappropriate for the institution of the Mayor’s office to reproach members of an opposing party for addressing the municipal council during its sittings.”

Says ML also asked questions

Gobé and other members of his party also pointed out that the ML itself, including Demers, were asking questions at Laval city council meetings since at least 2009 – four years before they were voted into power. “Either the mayor has a very short memory, or he is of extreme bad faith,” added the opposition party’s leader.

A large chunk of time during question period was taken up by homeowners of an area in western Laval near Jolibourg Park in the district of Laval-les-Îles. They are up in arms over the City of Laval’s decision to install several large construction trailers and to asphalt a previously grassed-over area in the park for the next two years in order to facilitate the reconstruction of bridges serving Île Pariseau, Île Bigras and Île Verte.

Maintaining that neither he nor anyone else on city council was informed by the bureaucracy of what was going on, Mayor Demers denied one of the residents’ claims that he refused to visit the site.

Jolibourg Park controversy

“It seemed to me it would be better to get some answers first before proceeding,” he said. While insisting that the integrity of the park is important, Demers went on to say that “we have the challenge of having to build four bridges – two temporary and two permanent.”

And pursuant to the appearance during last month’s council meeting of a large delegation of residents living near a stretch of Lévesque Blvd. West where a developer wants to build a new 25-storey residential tower, a number of people from the same crowd were back this month.

Martin C. Barry

EXCLUSIVE

The Laval News has learned that one of the people recently appointed by Mayor Marc Demers to the city’s new Place-du-Souvenir Fund committee was herself at one time a political attaché for former mayor Gilles Vaillancourt.

The Place-du-Souvenir Fund committee will be overseeing a $10 million settlement the City of Laval received from the disgraced ex-mayor who is now serving a prison sentence after being convicted of official corruption.

Vaillancourt’s pick for JP

In an October 1996 article in La Presse, the Montreal daily recounted Vaillancourt’s efforts to have Lynda Tousignant – one of those named on June 19 by Demers to the Place-du-Souvenir committee – appointed a Justice of the Peace in Laval’s municipal court system.

In a handout furnished last week by the City of Laval, Tousignant is identified as a member of the Barreau du Québec (Quebec Bar Association) since 1983 and an ex-employee of Laval’s legal affairs department, serving from 1998 to 2011.

Ran for ex-mayor’s Parti PRO

However, the city’s summary of Tousignant’s background doesn’t mention that she was also a candidate for the Parti Québécois in the Laval riding of Vimont for the 2012 election. Demers, who would be elected mayor of Laval in 2013, was also a PQ candidate in 2012 in the nearby Laval-des-Rapides riding.

In addition, the La Presse report noted that Tousignant was a candidate for former mayor Gilles Vaillancourt’s now defunct and discredited Parti PRO des Lavallois in the 1989 municipal election. Following her defeat (the paper said she was the only Parti PRO candidate that year who failed to be elected), she was hired by Vaillancourt as an attaché.

JP appointments rejected

According to La Presse, Tousignant took an unpaid leave in 1995 from her job as Vaillancourt’s assistant. The following year, the paper said, she was one of four City of Laval administration employees that Vaillancourt recommended to Quebec for appointment as Justices of the Peace to deal with a backlog of legal files in Laval’s municipal court system.

While, according to La Presse, Vaillancourt and the city argued that the appointments wouldn’t cost Laval more because the employees would be paid their existing salaries, the Quebec Ministry of Justice ruled they didn’t have the right kind of qualifications for Justices of the Peace, and Quebec refused to make the appointments, La Presse stated.

Tousignant responds

Reached by the Laval News at her home in Duvernay, Tousignant acknowledged she was an employee from 1990 to 1995 in Vaillancourt’s office as counsellor for legal and administrative affairs. As well, she said her tenure with the city’s legal affairs department was from 1996 to 2011.

Tousignant also acknowledged that the ran for the Parti PRO des Lavallois in 1989 in the district of Saint-Sylvain which no longer exists. Asked to explain why neither she nor the current City of Laval administration bothered to mention her past involvement with the Vaillancourt administration – especially when she’s now a trustee for a fund consisting of money that came from the former mayor’s corruption – Tousignant responded:

Didn’t see the relevance

“You can perhaps understand that I had left the mayor of Laval’s office so long ago that I really didn’t see the relevance. I realize it must seem ironic that I find myself here. Mr. Demers knows very well that I used to work in Mr. Vaillancourt’s office. I take this as a sign of the confidence he has in me and in my integrity.

“As for what happened to Mr. Vaillancourt, Mr. Vaillancourt was found guilty and he surrendered sums of money,” she continued. “Now what do we do with those sums? Mr. Demers and city council decided to place them in a fund dedicated to children and that is what attracted me – being able to help the children of Laval.”

Martin C. Barry

Officials with the City of Laval have come up with a way to put that $10 million they succeeded in reclaiming from disgraced former mayor Gilles Vaillancourt to good use.

Beginning next year, $600,000 in annual interest will be paid out to community groups in Laval that deal with children and adolescents from infancy up to 17 years of age. However, because 2017 is already half over, the payout this year is just $300,000.

Five-member committee

Mayor Marc Demers made the announcement at city hall last week with four of the five newly-appointed members of a new consultative committee that will be responsible for making recommendations on how subsidies from the fund should be allotted.

The committee’s members are former Olympic diving medallist Roseline Filion, former City of Laval civil servant and lawyer Lynda Tousignant, women’s business networking executive Eve Dalphond, Laval Families owner and editor Luigi Morabito, and former City of Laval culture and leisure activities department employee Jean-Pierre Tessier.

“We are pleased and honoured that these persons of great quality willingly accepted to watch over the Place-du-Souvenir Fund, a tool which will allow us to give back to young Laval residents the money they would otherwise have had if it had not been skimmed off by corruption, ” Mayor Marc Demers said during an announcement made at Laval city hall on June 19.

Support for the young

According to Demers, the idea behind the creation of the new Fonds Place-du-Souvenir was that all children and teenagers in Laval should be able to count on the support of their families as well as the local community as they mature and develop into adults.

“We will directly be supporting Laval’s youths by intervening in four key areas,” added Demers. “We will be joining the fight against poverty and social exclusion. We will also be encouraging academic perseverance and success in school. We will be facilitating the social integration of young immigrants. Finally, we will be encouraging access to cultural activities, since the democratization of access to culture is a value to be shared.”

According to the city, the fund will be administered at no cost by the city’s retired employees committee, with a set rate of investment return of 6 per cent. The choice of name was quite deliberate, said the mayor, pointing out that the money in question was successfully claimed back by Laval from former mayor Vaillancourt who is currently serving a prison term after being found guilty of collusion and corruption while in office for around two decades.

Opposition is negative

Laval city hall’s two opposition parties, Action Laval and the Parti Laval, reacted negatively for the most part to news of the fund’s creation. Both parties maintain that the timing – some five months before the next municipal elections – makes the fund look as though it was motivated by partisan interests.

“I have no problem with the overall goal of the fund, just the way the money is being used,” said Parti Laval leader Michel Trottier, who didn’t agree with the city’s choice of fund committee members. Trottier noted that two of the members, Lynda Tousignant and Luigi Morabito, are listed in public records as having made donations in recent years to the Mouvement Lavallois/Équipe Marc Demers.

They say election’s coming

“I have reason to doubt the integrity of the decisions which could be made,” Trottier said regarding the committee’s work. While the mayor said he was announcing the creation of the Place-du-Souvenir Fund now so that students returning to school in the fall could draw benefits from it, Trottier added, “I think it’s just an electoral announcement made before the elections.”

Action Laval leader Jean-Claude Gobé declined to single out anyone chosen to sit on the committee, although he concurred with the Parti Laval leader’s view that the announcement was motivated by electoral interests. “This is an election year,” said Gobé. He suggested that the organizations destined to receive the funding are being used by the city administration “to generate political capital for themselves.”