Police to review Montreal's Telus contract: auditor

Montreal's auditor general has asked police to investigate the city's contract with Telus, alleging contract irregularities with the telecommunications company.

Auditor General Jacques Bergeron shared his concerns about the Telus contract with reporters Tuesday morning, after presenting his 400-page annual report to city council the night before.

Bergeron listed problems with how the contract was purchased, "significant delays" and its total cost as serious concerns that warranted police investigation.

Two years after the $100 million contract to update the city's landline and cellphone networks was awarded, Bergeron said the project is already 20 per cent over budget.

Only 11 per cent of the work has been completed, he added.

Bergeron said the city refused to listen to advice on the project.

"Key experts in telecommunications and computer security were hardly consulted … in one case, they were even excluded from the project," Bergeron said.

Bergeron declined to provide further information on the case since it is now under police investigation.

On Tuesday, city manager Louis Roquet defended the contract, which he said was expected to save the city tens of millions of dollars.

He denied the contract is over budget and maintained work is on schedule.

Roquet also defended his decision to disclose information about the auditor's report to Telus, before its release, which caused him to be publicly chastised by Bergeron last week.

Roquet said he would have preferred that the auditor general had contacted Telus himself.

But when Bergeron failed to do so, Roquet said, the only ethical thing to do was for him to give the company a heads-up about the report's findings.

The goal was "to make sure that what he was saying was absolutely [correct] and could not be construed as a leak of competitive information," Roquet told reporters in a news conference on Tuesday after Bergeron's report was released.

Montreal Opposition Leader Louise Harel called the report's findings a "catastrophe" and blamed Roquet for any inappropriate dealings.

Harel said this latest police investigation is another black mark for the administration of Mayor Gérald Tremblay.

Investigations are already underway into certain real estate transactions by Montreal's Housing and Development Corporation (SHDM) as well as into the awarding of a controversial $355 million water-meter contract that was later cancelled by the city, she said.

Security contracts questioned

In his report, Bergeron was also critical of private security contracts signed by the city.

Significant expenses were incurred for building security without any call for tenders and without the authorization of the executive committee or the Agglomeration Council, which represents municipalities in the Montreal region, Bergeron said.

Employees of the Canadian Bureau of Investigations, which was hired to provide security for three police stations, did not undergo regular background checks, said Bergeron.

After the company's contract expired, employees continued working for nine months before the contract was renewed.

Roquet confirmed the city's contract with the company is under review.

BCIA has made headlines recently following concerns about the company's relationship with former Quebec family minister Tony Tomassi.

Tomassi was fired from cabinet, and ejected from the Liberal Party caucus after he admitted to using a credit card belonging to the firm for his own personal use while he was a member of the national assembly.

Questions have also been raised about how the company's president, Luigi Coretti, obtained an authorization to carry a prohibited or restricted weapon.

Despite the fact that his request for the permit was initially rejected by provincial police, Coretti later obtained a permit after meeting with Public Security Minister Jacques Dupuis.

Dupuis has denied having intervened in the case.