The opposition parties will vote against the bill that would change the governance of the UPAC

Simon Clark/QMI Agency
Francois Legault.

Nicolas Lachance

Tuesday, 13 February 2018 13:45

UPDATE
Tuesday, 13 February 2018 13:50

Look at this article

All the opposition parties will vote against the bill that would change the governance of the Unité permanente anticorruption (UPAC), whereas the union of the Sûreté du Québec also requested that the government Couillard to defer its adoption.

The Parti québécois (PQ), Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) and Québec solidaire (QS) does not intend to support bill 107, which will be submitted to a vote of consideration in the national Assembly on Tuesday afternoon.

Photo By Pascal Huot

“We think that it is a very bad idea to give more power to a management team that has demonstrated its incompetence,” said the leader of the official opposition, Jean-François Lisée, reiterating his desire that the commissioner of the UPAC will be appointed to two-thirds of the national Assembly.

Tuesday morning, the trade union of police officers of the SQ said that he feared this bill, so that the work climate is very hard on the inside of the unit.

The leader of the CAQ, François Legault, maintains, however, that UPAC must now focus in order to perform his or her work to investigate the financing of the liberal Party, and this, before the next elections. “I see the same doubts, the same concerns about the working climate. I see that after all these years, it still has not reached a conclusion on the investigation on Jean Charest and Marc Bibeau,” he said, refusing, as the other parties, to demand the resignation of the commissioner of UPAC, Robert Lafreniere. “We don’t have the choice, for the moment, to trust him.”

Photo Simon Clark

The member of parliament for Mercier, Amir Khadir, has pointed out that this is not the bill 107 that will solve the problems of the UPAC. “I don’t know what is going on, but mr. Coiteux disappoints a lot”, mentioned the member of parliament for QS.

Effective

For his part, the minister of public Safety, Martin Coiteux, said not to do with the contestation of the opposition. “It belongs to them (…) Is do I have to make an absolute tragedy, no. We have differences of opinion”, he pointed out, assuring that his bill will make changes effective. “It (the Law) because of the UPAC a police force in good and due form with all the obligations attached to it. This is not just a matter of increased power, but efficiency, an issue of bonds. It creates an oversight committee of UPAC in order to be able to go to the bottom of things”, he stressed.

In a letter to the president of the Association of provincial police of Quebec (APPQ), Pierre Veilleux, sent to the minister of public Safety, the investigators of the SQ claim to leave UPAC if an article providing for its participation in the process of loan of investigators from the SQ to the anti-corruption unit is not added.

However, the minister Coiteux ensures that this problem could be solved without touching the bill. “There is already an approach that is being (…) in order to find the best loan possible service that will suit all parties.

You don’t have to change anything in the bill 107, we just need to sit in partners and find a solution,” he said.