Head of CHUM relieved of duties

A model of the CHUM. (Mar. 30, 2009)

Last week Quebec's Auditor General identified several overpaid bureaucrats, including the director of the CHUM the Université de Montreal hospital complex.

On Tuesday the CHUM announced it has decided to relieve Christian Paire of his duties. He is suspended with pay until his contract will be terminated.

On an interim basis Paire will be replaced by Yves Gendron, who has been associate director since 2012.

Paire was singled out by the auditor general for being paid more than is legally allowed, and for allowing multiple senior management jobs to be filled without being posted.

After reading the Auditor's report Health Minister Rejean Hebert said the hospital centre had until Wednesday to end Paire's contract.

Paire is already involved in a lawsuit against the CHUM after it stopped paying him a second salary in 2011. The CHUM stopped giving him an extra $80,000 per year because he was not teaching, an apparent condition of that contract.

Paire started working as director of the CHUM in 2009, leaving a position at one of the largest teaching hospitals in France.

Since the Auditor's report the former head of Tourism Montreal, Charles Lapointe, has quit his position as head of the Arts Council, and current Tourism Montreal chair Jacques Parisien -- formerly of Astral Media and scheduled to leave Bell Media at year's end -- has stepped down.