26 April 2013. Former mayor of Montreal, Gerald Tremblay, told the Charbonneau Commission that his party’s chief fundraiser, Bernard Trépanier, had solicited bribe amounting to 1 million from the SmartCentres company to facilitate licence to expand its mall-operating business in Montreal. He added that Bernard Trépanier had demanded the money “as a representative of the mayor.”
His testimony Thursday shed new light on the departure of several people who left city jobs under mysterious circumstances over the last decade. Trepanier continued to be involved in Union Montreal party fundraisers for a few more years after his official exit in 2006. Tremblay struggled to explain why Trepanier continued to raise money on behalf of his Union Montreal party after being fired.Tremblay said he fired the fundraiser on the spot and asked the former police chief, Yvan Delorme to investigate. The police chief refused to
investigate as no act was committed, so there’s no grounds for an investigation.
The police chief also eventually resigned, under mysterious circumstances, in 2010 after his mandate had just been extended.
Tremblay himself resigned under a cloud of scandal brought in by the testimony before the enqiry that he was aware of alleged illegal financing and did nothing.
The former mayor expressed anger at senior officials Frank Zampino and Robert Abdallah who he said had betrayed his trust.
Zampino left the city hall in 2008 on his own volition and went to work for Dessau — the engineering firm that would eventually be awarded the city’s ill-fated water meter contract as part of a consortium.
Abdallah was sacked by Tremblay. Aftereaving the city hall Abdallah went to work in the constructionthe industry and in the following year Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office made him head of the Port of Montreal.
