The Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC) received 575 reports of wrongdoing in the last year, an increase of 28 per cent over the previous fiscal year, according to the latest Annual Management Report of the Anti-Corruption Commissioner.
Nearly a quarter of the reports came from the public sector.
At a press conference Thursday morning in Quebec City, UPAC commissioner Vincent Richer reported increasingly complex corruption schemes.
“The days when everyone knew what was going on and money was changing hands are over. Corruption and fraud schemes are now carried out by a small group of people. So we need the public’s help,” said the commissioner, who asked witnesses of wrongdoing to report it.
The reports are yielding “conclusive results,” Richer said, giving a few examples.
“In the Lower Saint Lawrence region, we conducted an investigation that led to charges being laid against the former director general of Saint-Simon-de-Rimouski. She pleaded guilty to fraud of more than $300,000. For a small municipality of 500 people, that’s a huge amount of money.”
In Beauce, a contractor who fraudulently took advantage of subsidies to help flood victims eventually pleaded guilty to fraud involving $1 million, the commissioner pointed out.
“In the Eastern Townships, a professor at the University of Sherbrooke was found guilty of fraud involving more than $100,000,” and in Montreal, charges were laid against six people who “fraudulently issued more than 2,000 driver’s licences,” the former deputy director of the Montreal Police Service also explained.
In total, during the 2024-2025 period, criminal and penal investigations conducted by teams from the Anti-Corruption Commissioner (CLCC), the Régie du bâtiment du Québec, and Revenu Québec led to charges being laid against “134 individuals and legal entities, the conviction of 138 defendants, and the imposition of more than $760,000 in fines.”
This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
