BY: Monique Muise
Source: montrealgazette.com
Canada - What is a biker gang? How do they operate? How many of them are there in Quebec? Where did they come from? Charbonneau Commission chief counsel Sonia LeBel got the answers to all of these questions - and plenty more - on Wednesday, as one of the province's foremost experts on biker gangs took the stand at the ongoing public inquiry.
Sûreté du Québec Sgt. Alain Belleau described the criminal organizations as his "passion," and testified for nearly two hours about biker gangs' origins, organizational structures, turf wars and history in Quebec. He's expected to be back for more on Thursday morning.
While the Charbonneau Commission has tackled the Mafia issue in recent months, this week marks the first time that biker gangs have been discussed in detail. Belleau's time on the stand is expected to serve as a primer for future testimony detailing how organized crime was able to infiltrate the province's powerful construction unions over the last 15 years.
Today, Belleau said, only the Hells Angels remain in Quebec - but since arriving in 1977, the gang has faced numerous challenges to its territory from rival gangs including the Bandidos, Rock Machine and Outlaws. None of the Quebec chapters is active, the witness explained, because you need six members who are free to attend meetings in order to be considered an active club - and most of the Hells Angels in the province have been jailed.
Wednesday's testimony was nothing new for Justice France Charbonneau, who is herself considered an expert on the Hells. Before being named a judge in 2004, she successfully prosecuted one of the gang's highest ranking and most feared members, Maurice "Mom" Boucher.
Earlier in the day, the inquiry heard how collusion among engineering firms in Quebec City was rampant in the latter half of the 2000s, with eight companies forming a cartel in 2004 and sharing in the profits when the federal government began pumping millions into infrastructure projects in the provincial capital.
According to former AECOM (Tecsult) executive Patrice Mathieu, getting the cartel up and running proved trickier than expected, and the firms were caught red-handed the first time they attempted to fix their bids.
In 2004, the city had launched a call for tender on a major project to install retention basins in the St-Charles river, Mathieu said, and a handful of companies held discussions in advance in an effort to avoid "a price war."
When the bid documents were delivered to city hall, however, Quebec City's general manager saw right though the scheme. The bids were rejected on the grounds that there was obviously collusion taking place, and the city cancelled its call for tender.
"We were playing with fire," Mathieu acknowledged.
It appears no one was very worried about getting burned, however. Mathieu said the engineering executives simply waited until the following year, and the city reissued the call for tender. Once again, the bids were rigged, but this time, the city said nothing and the contract was awarded.
By 2006, Mathieu recalled, new funding was pouring in through the federal government's Economic Action Plan, and Quebec City was planning dozens of new projects.
"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," Mathieu said. "So many projects in such a short time."
In an effort to maintain their profit margins and avoid the price drops that would occur if the companies competed fairly, SNC-Lavalin, CIMA+, Tecsult (AECOM), BPR, Dessau, Roche, Genivar, and HBA-Teknika began meeting to pvy up the work, Mathieu said.
The executives even signed a document committing to "respect the professional fee structure for a given service."
The witness told the commissioners that Law 106 - which requires cities to launch a call for tender and then award contracts based on the lowest price offered - is "perverse."
"It led us to collusion," he testified, adding that "We weren't happy to do it … we knew it wasn't right."
The Quebec City cartel eventually fell apart in 2011.
Sûreté du Québec Sgt. Alain Belleau described the criminal organizations as his "passion," and testified for nearly two hours about biker gangs' origins, organizational structures, turf wars and history in Quebec. He's expected to be back for more on Thursday morning.
While the Charbonneau Commission has tackled the Mafia issue in recent months, this week marks the first time that biker gangs have been discussed in detail. Belleau's time on the stand is expected to serve as a primer for future testimony detailing how organized crime was able to infiltrate the province's powerful construction unions over the last 15 years.
Today, Belleau said, only the Hells Angels remain in Quebec - but since arriving in 1977, the gang has faced numerous challenges to its territory from rival gangs including the Bandidos, Rock Machine and Outlaws. None of the Quebec chapters is active, the witness explained, because you need six members who are free to attend meetings in order to be considered an active club - and most of the Hells Angels in the province have been jailed.
Wednesday's testimony was nothing new for Justice France Charbonneau, who is herself considered an expert on the Hells. Before being named a judge in 2004, she successfully prosecuted one of the gang's highest ranking and most feared members, Maurice "Mom" Boucher.
Earlier in the day, the inquiry heard how collusion among engineering firms in Quebec City was rampant in the latter half of the 2000s, with eight companies forming a cartel in 2004 and sharing in the profits when the federal government began pumping millions into infrastructure projects in the provincial capital.
According to former AECOM (Tecsult) executive Patrice Mathieu, getting the cartel up and running proved trickier than expected, and the firms were caught red-handed the first time they attempted to fix their bids.
In 2004, the city had launched a call for tender on a major project to install retention basins in the St-Charles river, Mathieu said, and a handful of companies held discussions in advance in an effort to avoid "a price war."
When the bid documents were delivered to city hall, however, Quebec City's general manager saw right though the scheme. The bids were rejected on the grounds that there was obviously collusion taking place, and the city cancelled its call for tender.
"We were playing with fire," Mathieu acknowledged.
It appears no one was very worried about getting burned, however. Mathieu said the engineering executives simply waited until the following year, and the city reissued the call for tender. Once again, the bids were rigged, but this time, the city said nothing and the contract was awarded.
By 2006, Mathieu recalled, new funding was pouring in through the federal government's Economic Action Plan, and Quebec City was planning dozens of new projects.
"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," Mathieu said. "So many projects in such a short time."
In an effort to maintain their profit margins and avoid the price drops that would occur if the companies competed fairly, SNC-Lavalin, CIMA+, Tecsult (AECOM), BPR, Dessau, Roche, Genivar, and HBA-Teknika began meeting to pvy up the work, Mathieu said.
The executives even signed a document committing to "respect the professional fee structure for a given service."
The witness told the commissioners that Law 106 - which requires cities to launch a call for tender and then award contracts based on the lowest price offered - is "perverse."
"It led us to collusion," he testified, adding that "We weren't happy to do it … we knew it wasn't right."
The Quebec City cartel eventually fell apart in 2011.
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