Charbonneau commissioners' testy exchanges revealed in emails

They sat side by side for months on end, as the hearings into allegations of corruption in Quebec's construction industry plodded along. 

But emails and an annotated draft chapter obtained by Radio-Canada's Enquête program show commission chairwoman France Charbonneau and co-commissioner Renaud Lachance had numerous acrimonious exchanges as they wrote the public inquiry's final report – particularly when it came to political party financing.

About a hundred pages of a draft chapter on political financing, with notes handwritten by Lachance in September, reveal that the province's former auditor general wanted to soften the final report's criticism directed at political parties, particularly the Quebec Liberal Party. 

You should look at your own actions before you try to preach to others,- Co-commissioner Renaud Lachance, in an email to France Charbonneau

"Ridiculous. You must not have experienced anything in life to have written this," Lachance wrote beside one paragraph dealing with private meetings between entrepreneurs and government ministers.

Lachance used the term "ridiculous" five other times in the annotated draft, without further explanation. 

Dissenting emails

Emails exchanged during the same time period also show a rift between the two. 

"You should look at your own actions before you try to preach to others," Lachance wrote to Charbonneau in an email dated Aug 30. 

I'd like to remind you that our duty is more important than our disagreement,- Commission chair France Charbonneau, in an email to Renaud Lachance

That was in response to a long email from Charbonneau, in which the commission chairwoman writes: "It's been nearly a month since you decided to ignore me. But I'd like to remind you that our duty is more important than our disagreement."

"If you decide to put your comments in the commissioners' note instead of the main text, you know that will attract the attention of both the media and the public," she goes on to write.

"[It will] focus the debate on us, instead of the report," the email says. "Is that what you want?"

The note reveals that Charbonneau tried to reach an agreement with her colleague, since she told him she would gladly change the text if he indicated "proof to corroborate what you disagree with."

A few days later, Lachance sent Charbonneau the annotated chapter. 

Among the passages he disagreed with were those dealing with businessman Marc Bibeau and former Liberal premier Jean Charest, as well as sections on two former Liberal ministers, Nathalie Normandeau and Line Beauchamp.  

On Marc Bibeau and Jean Charest 

Lachance's handwritten notes reveal that he had problems with labelling Bibeau a Liberal party fundraiser.

Lachance crossed out the sentence, "Bibeau wasn't only responsible for financing at the Quebec Liberal Party" and added that only one witness provided the inquiry with that information.

Lachance wrote in the margins: "Actually, Bibeau never had an official job at the Quebec Liberal Party."

During the public hearings, numerous witnesses, including members of the Liberal Party, engineers and construction bosses, testified that Bibeau was in charge of the party's financing. 

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In another section of the draft, Lachance crossed out Jean Charest's name from this sentence without explanation: "The demands from the Liberal Party to donate became more intense during the 2000's under Jean Charest and Marc Bibeau's reign." 

Lachance also wanted to edit the section addressing former Liberal minister Nathalie Normandeau, particularly the paragraphs that criticized how she managed a subsidy program for water-treatment plants.

He called "unnecessary" the section that addressed the close relationship between Normandeau's chief of staff, Bruno Lortie, and former Liberal minister Marc-Yvan Côté, who was by then vice-president of the engineering firm, Roche.

When contacted by Enquête, Lachance said he would prefer not to speak publicly at this time. 

PQ questions integrity of report

MNA Bernard Drainville, the PQ's ethics critic, called the leaked emails and draft "disgusting".

"After $45 million and this infighting, the end result is we haven't got the truth. We haven't gotten to the bottom of how the Quebec Liberal Party was being financed," he said, adding that Quebec taxpayers are "likely a little pissed off, as well."

Drainville has sent a formal letter requesting that the parliamentary committee on institutions invite both commissioners to explain themselves.

He wants the committee to "shed light on the inquiry's conclusions," particularly the reason Lachance chose to disagree with the head of the commission on such an "important part of the inquiry's conclusions."

For both Charbonneau and Lachance to appear in front of the committee, all of the national assembly's parties have to agree to Drainville's request.