Jacques Duchesneau
4 August 2012. Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) will showcase Jacques Duchesneau, Québec’s anti-corruption guru, as a star candidate in the 2012 elections. Duchesneau, former Montreal police chief, led Quebec’s anti-collusion squad investigating allegations of corruption in the province’s construction sector and illegal political party financing. He has said that Quebec political parties are awash in dirty money, with up to 70 per cent of their cash raised illegally. Mr. Duchesneau would pose a potential threat not only to Jean Charest’s Liberals but to the Parti Québécois (PQ), which ran the province before the Liberals. His presence could upset PQ’s campaign strategy. PQ leader Pauline Marois has been positioning herself as the standard-bearer of honesty and integrity and the only alternative to Mr. Charest’s “corrupt” government. It was the leak of an explosive report by Duchesneau in the fall of 2011 that finally pushed Charest to name a provincial inquiry into corruption after resisting public pressure for almost two years. Duchesneau gave testimony at the Charbonneau commission, set up to look into corruption and collusion in Quebec’s construction industry. The inquiry headed by Quebec Superior Court judge France Charbonneau will also examine the ties between the awarding of government contracts and the financing of political parties.
