Councillor wants to know why his emails were opened?
MONTREAL
Allegations of espionage and email snooping enveloped Montreal’s city hall on Monday, with a senior elected member of the governing party at the centre of the scandal.
Veteran city councillor Claude Dauphin said Monday he wants answers after being informed his emails were opened by a senior city bureaucrat after prompting by provincial police.
The fresh allegations added to an increasingly chaotic situation at scandal-plagued city hall.
Mayor Gerald Tremblay revealed the espionage occurred in the midst of an internal investigation involving Dauphin, who is chairman of city council and a member of Tremblay’s political party.
Municipal regulations explicitly forbid city employees from investigating elected officials and their staff.
“The real case that concerns us today is whether or not an elected official was subject to an investigation without his knowledge: Were my communications spied upon?,” Dauphin said shortly before an afternoon city council meeting that was quickly postponed.
“If the response is yes, then it’s totally unacceptable and it’s totally illegal.”
Dauphin is asking why city controller Pierre Reid opened his emails.
Reid is a veteran bureaucrat who has been at the centre of espionage scandals in recent months.
The 30-year veteran city employee spearheaded a secret investigation into Montreal auditor general Jacques Bergeron which came to light in February.
On Monday, Reid was relieved of his duties as controller but will remain with the city in a different capacity, Tremblay said.
Tremblay noted the emails were opened as part of an internal investigation into a deal involving Dauphin, a probe the mayor said produced “troubling facts.”
He said Reid was acting in good faith and only doing his job and that it was police who suggested the emails be scrutinized.
The catch: there was no formal, written request from either the police or the Quebec government.
“I think that Pierre Reid had a difficult (job),” Tremblay said.
“He was in a position where there were a lot of allegations of collusion and corruption and a lot of irregularities.”
The Tremblay administration has been under fire to fire Reid since a revelation that a 10-month investigation of the auditor general was conducted after anonymous tips that Bergeron had behaved improperly.
The bureaucrats alleged the investigation found that Bergeron awarded contracts to his family and used city resources for personal reasons.
Some elected officials expressed concern that espionage was widespread within city hall and they asked again on Monday for Reid to be fired outright.
“I don’t understand how Mayor Tremblay can reconcile his solemn declarations to Montrealers that there had been no espionage of elected officials,” said opposition Coun. Alex Norris of Projet Montreal.
“It’s a completely absurd situation and it’s difficult to maintain any confidence in Mayor Tremblay when he says one thing and then the opposite two weeks later.”
The mayor has also requested that new guidelines be drafted to require official written authorization from police or government officials before emails are searched.
Tremblay said Dauphin will be asked to step down as council speaker and from the party caucus pending the police investigation. A city hall motion to that effect could come as early as Tuesday.
Dauphin has denied any wrongdoing and says the transaction involving property in the west-end borough where he is mayor was above board.
He said he will not step down.
“On the basis of a document I haven’t seen, the mayor asked me to resign, which I’ve refused,” Dauphin said, adding his reputation is on the line.
“I have nothing to hide.”