MONTREAL -- With his administration under heavy fire over an ongoing corruption scandal and calls for his resignation intensifying, Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay has elected to take a few days off.
That makes him the second mayor in the scandal-plagued Montreal area to take a leave for unspecified reasons, after a similar announcement from his colleague in Laval.
"The mayor of Montreal decided to take a few days off. He will return to city hall on Monday," Martine Painchaud, a spokesman for Tremblay, wrote on Twitter.
The break comes as both Tremblay and his administration remain under the microscope. A witness testified at Quebec's corruption inquiry this week that Tremblay not only knew about illegal fundraising within his political party -- but actually ignored it.
Tremblay had spent years denying knowledge of any wrongdoing and the party's lawyer has moved to have the mayor testify before the commission as soon as possible.
Tremblay cancelled a number of public appearances this week including a major speech scheduled for Friday outlining his economic legacy.
The timing of today's announcement is important: if Tremblay quits before Nov. 3, one year ahead of the next municipal election, an early vote for the mayoralty will be held.
If he quits afterward, under the provincial law, he can be replaced by city council without an election. His party holds the majority on council and municipal elections across the province are to be held in November 2013.
He's the second mayor to take a break. Laval Mayor Gilles Vaillancourt, the subject of multiple raids by Quebec's anti-corruption unit in recent weeks, has taken a longer-term medical leave of absence.
Unlike Vaillancourt, who was accused of pocketing kickbacks during testimony at Quebec's public inquiry, the mayor of Montreal is not accused of personally pocketing any illict money.
Tremblay's party has, however, been accused of illegal fundraising and some of his closest associates are deeply immersed in ongoing corruption scandals.
The city's reputation has come under intense scrutiny as a parade of witnesses have come forward to testify about rampant bid-rigging and collusion.
Retired city employees, a construction boss and former political staffers for Tremblay's own party have testified over the past few weeks that they had heard that the mayor's party was collecting a three per cent cut on rigged construction contracts.
At the inquiry on Thursday, a crooked Montreal civil servant says it would have been difficult for any honest supervisor to catch him because he was so good at doctoring contracts.
The now-retired city engineer, Luc Leclerc, told a public inquiry Thursday that he was adept at manipulating construction contracts to inflate the final price tag awarded to companies that had given him kickbacks.
Leclerc said he always hid the phony expenses behind legitimate unexpected costs that popped up over the course of a project.
He has been less apologetic while testifying than another colleague who repeatedly expressed remorse for what he had done. Between the two of them, they pocketed more than $1.2 million in kickbacks from construction companies that benefited from rigged bids.
Leclerc illustrated his attitude with an anecdote.
He described how some companies were unhappy when a new player, Lino Zambito and his Infrabec company, arrived on the scene a little over a decade ago. He said he joked with Zambito that he had the power to make life difficult for him -- to keep him from winning contracts and diluting the spoils for everyone else.
Of course, Leclerc said, he didn't do that in the end.
"I never made life difficult for anyone," Leclerc said.
"On the contrary, I had a reputation for offering five-star service."
Leclerc has already admitted to pocketing more than $500,000 from companies -- in addition to vacations, hockey tickets, wine, Christmas baskets, ham, and home renovation work.
He has described a golf vacation with the head of Canada's most powerful Mafia family, Vito Rizzuto, and described the don as a charming and funny travel companion.
