Boisbriand: sentence confirmed for former councillor Claude Briere

News 19 July, 2017

File Photo Martin Alarie
Claude Brière

Ex-municipal councillor

Camille Garnier

Wednesday, 19 July 2017 22:15

UPDATE
Wednesday, 19 July 2017 22:15

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The exchange of favors to convince the opponents not to stand for election is not part of the normal operation of the political life and constitutes a crime. This is what motivated a judge to confirm last Friday on appeal the conviction of a former councillor of Boisbriand, Claude Brière.

Mr. Briere was sentenced to two years of probation in October 2015 for plotting in 2009 alongside the mayor then Sylvie Berniquez St-Jean and the contractor Lino Zambito in order to maintain the status quo at the municipal council of Boisbriand and avoid the holding of elections.

He was accused of having represented the mayor at a meeting with representatives of the party opposite and of their proposed counterparties if they were willing to give up to be present in some districts.

Negotiations

Claude Brière had appealed the decision, explaining that the discussion in question was only a simple trading policy.

The former city councillor even went as far as to argue that the discussion of the presentation, or in the absence of candidates in an election was a matter of freedom of association, making it a right constitutionally protected.

None of these arguments will, therefore, convinced the judge Martin Vauclair.

In his analysis, the magistrate indicates that the behavior of Claude Brière is within the jurisdiction of the breach of trust and does not fit in the framework of the ” politics of normal “.

Counterparties

The judge Vauclair adds that it may be legal to try to convince a political opponent, with arguments to be legitimate, to withdraw or not to stand for election only to the extent that there are neither threats nor rewards.

But in this case, the investigation has shown that the counterparties had been offered to the political opponents of the mayor Berniquez St-Jean, including the support of the municipality to a project for the soccer field.

Sylvie Berniquez St-Jean was sentenced in 2014 to two years in prison and in the community.