More confusion and contradictions at corruption inquiry

Andre Morrow of Morrow Communications testifies at the Charbonneau Inquiry. (March 27, 2013)

MONTREAL—Andre Morrow, head of the Morrow Communications firm, took the stand at the Charbonneau Inquiry Thursday morning to face questions about his firm's political activities.

Last week SNC-Lavalin vice-president Yves Cadotte said he paid a fake bill to Morrow Communications for $75,000—money that was diverted to Union Montreal’s Bernard Trepanier as part of a $200,000 bribe.

This week, Trepanier and Union Montreal accountant Marc Deschamps said the Morrow Communications bill had nothing to do with bribery.

On Thursday, Morrow said the $75,000 bill was a retainer that his firm was going to work for SNC-Lavalin and VP Pierre Anctil.

Anctil is a former Liberal strategist whom Cadotte said gave him the cash to pay Trepanier.

According to Morrow, he agreed to work for SNC-Lavalin in February 2005, but only asked to be paid in November—coincidentally during the municipal electoral campaign.

"I wanted to add SNC-Lavalin in an official way to my list of clients. It falls into my area of expertise. It allows us to develop, again, a more precise area of expertise," said Morrow.

Morrow's testimony contradicts what was said last week, so either Morrow or Cadotte is lying.

Morrow is the spouse of former Liberal MNA and political commentator Liza Frulla, and has known former Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay since 1985.

His firm has worked with several political clients and in 2008 created a fake blog in order to promote the Bixi bike sharing service.

When the corporate nature of the blog was exposed a year later, Morrow said that it was a legitimate viral marketing campaign on behalf of Stationnement de Montreal, the agency that launched Bixi.

Trepanier returned to speak

Morrow said he never worked with Trepanier and phone records show they spoke eight times.

Following Morrow's testimony Trepanier, the former Union Montreal fundraiser, returned to the stand, and said he did not know that Morrow was working for Union Montreal or SNC-Lavalin.

However he did say that he knew Frulla, Morrow's wife much better.

The rest of Trepanier's testimony continues to be extraordinarily confusing and contradictory.

As reporter Stephane Giroux said, "Bernard Trepanier has a way of saying everything and then its opposite, sometimes in the same sentence."

As an example, on Wednesday Trepanier denied that any collusion ever took place at city hall, and moments later proceeded to explain exactly how collusion worked in Montreal a decade ago, with Trepanier setting up companies in consortiums so they could win contracts.

A long list of witnesses at the Charbonneau commission all testified that the collusion system at Montreal city hall worked like this: Engineer Michel Lalonde from Groupe Seguin headed a cartel of engineering firms which divided-up the contracts amongst themselves. That cartel counted on high-ranking civil servant Robert Marcil to rig the calls for tenders with the help of Bernard Trepanier, who oversaw the system.

Contracts were awarded in exchange for millions given in campaign contributions—an allegation Trepanier continues to deny.

Trepanier then said that sometimes companies "cheated," although Trepanier's definition of cheated means a company won a contract by making the lowest bid and not by asking Trepanier or any other city hall employee to give it the contract.

Another surprise revealed by the commission concerns Frank Zampino. The former chairman of the city's executive committee still met with Trepanier to discuss city business as late as in 2009, a year after his resignation.

“When Mr. Zampino left, he never touched the city's affairs, he left Montreal, he left,” Trepanier answered, when threatened with the phone logs of his conversations with Zampino.

Both Trepanier and Zampino were arrested last year in connection with a vast fraud involving the Faubourg Contrecoeur real estate deal, a city project dating back to 2009.

The commission is now taking a break until April 15, when it resumes, Trepanier will finish his testimony. Both Gerald Tremblay and Frank Zampino are expected to testify.