Corruption is Everywhere - Certainly in Quebec Construction

Former SNC-Lavalin CEO pleads guilty

in superhospital fraud case

CBC News 

Former SNC-Lavalin CEO Pierre Duhaime leaves a Montreal courtroom on Friday, after pleaded guilty to a charge of helping a public servant commit breach of trust for his role in the MUHC superhospital bribe scandal. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)

Former SNC-Lavalin CEO Pierre Duhaime pleaded guilty to helping a public servant commit breach of trust in a Montreal courtroom Friday morning, six years after he was first arrested in a major fraud case related to a new hospital complex.

According to the Crown, Duhaime, 64, admitted to turning a blind eye to bribes made by his company in order to rig the bidding process so SNC-Lavalin would win the contract to build the new McGill University Hospital Centre (MUHC) superhospital in Montreal.

That contract was worth $1.3 billion.

"Instead of acting upon that knowledge, and stopping this from happening, which he could have done, he chose to look the other way," said prosecutor Robert Rouleau.

Quebec's anti-corruption squad arrested Duhaime in November 2012 on 15 charges, including fraud, conspiracy and forgery. Fourteen of those charges were withdrawn Friday.

​Duhaime's trial was supposed to begin next Monday.

He was alleged to have paid a total of $22.5 million in bribes to secure the MUHC contract. Of that money, $10 million went to Yanaï Elbaz, the former director of redevelopment for the MUHC.

Provincial court Judge Dominique Joly accepted a joint recommendation from the defence and Crown that Duhaime be sentenced to 20 months of house arrest, 240 hours of community service, and make a $200,000 donation to a fund that compensates victims of crime.

The wealthy have their own judicial system. House arrest!!!? Mind you, SNC Lavalin has been involved in corruption accusations all over the world as bribery is a way of life in construction, not just in Quebec but, most likely, in nearly every country. If a company is going to compete internationally, they have to play the game.

4th to plead guilty

Duhaime is the fourth person to plead guilty to charges in connection with the hospital contract, which one Quebec police investigator has called "the biggest case of corruption fraud in Canadian history."

Last November, Elbaz was sentenced to 39 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges including breach of trust and conspiracy.

Riadh Ben Aissa, SNC-Lavalin's former vice-president of construction, was sentenced to 51 months in prison in July. He pleaded guilty to one charge of using a forged document.

Pamela Porter, the wife of Arthur Porter, the former chief executive of MUHC who died in Panama in 2015, was jailed for money laundering in 2014. 

Duhaime hasn't been CEO of the engineering company since 2012, when he stepped down after an internal audit found he signed off on "improper payments" to undisclosed agents.