"Is the 'boss of all' in the office today," a quote from an email Violette Trépanier, head of fundraising for the Quebec Liberal Party between 1994 and 2012, sent while referring to Marc Bibeau, who officially held a volunteer position for fundraising campaigns.

An ongoing investigation into how Marc Bibeau raised funds for the Quebec Liberal Party while it was headed by former premier Jean Charest involved an effort to secretly install high-tech devices to spy on Bibeau’s offices in St-Eustache.

Details of a request for the secret warrant are contained in affidavits prepared by Sophie Plourde, a Montreal police detective sergeant who was on loan to the Sûreté du Québec during the summer of 2016. The affidavits were placed under seal but it was lifted in February 2018, following a request made in court by several media, including the Montreal Gazette. Bibeau has delayed the publication of any details contained in the affidavits by appealing the 2018 decision. On Thursday, the Supreme Court refused to hear Bibeau’s case.

Distroscale

During the summer of 2016, Revenue Quebec investigators were preparing to carry out a search warrant, in broad daylight on Aug. 17, on the sixth floor of an office building on Arthur-Sauvé Blvd. in St-Eustache. It houses the offices of Schokbeton Inc., Beauward Shopping Centres Ltd. and Saramac — all companies owned in whole or in part by Bibeau, a man described by several people interviewed by the SQ as being the Liberals’ top bagman and a close friend to the former premier. One person questioned by the SQ described Bibeau and Charest as being “like brothers.”

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Plourde’s request was part of Operation Mâchurer, an investigation by Quebec’s anti-corruption squad, UPAC. It began on April 4, 2014, and reportedly includes Charest. When he took over as head of UPAC in October last year, Frédérick Gaudreau said Operation Mâchurer was ongoing but there were still motions before the courts that questioned whether investigators could have access to evidence. In 2017, Gaudreau’s predecessor, Robert Lafrenière, said the investigation was stalled because following the seizure of a large number of documents in 2013, defence lawyers had raised questions over attorney-client privilege. Lafrenière made the comments after he was called before the National Assembly’s institutions committee to defend the agency’s independence. Opposition parties alleged that Operation Mâchurer was stalled because the Liberals were in power at the time and they enjoyed immunity from UPAC investigations.

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When the Revenue Quebec warrants were carried out in 2016, a UPAC spokesperson told reporters it was part of ongoing investigation concerning the Tax Administration Act and that UPAC was looking for accounting books. However, the affidavits prepared by Plourde reveal the SQ wanted permission to go inside as well in an effort to secretly size up how difficult it would be to install recording devices. Plourde wrote that it was part of an investigation into allegations of breach of trust, fraud on the government and conspiracy.

The people listed in Pourde’s request as subjects of interest are Bibeau, Violette Trépanier (director of finance for the Quebec Liberal Party between 1994 and 2012) and Pierre Bibeau (a former organizer for the Liberals who was a vice-president with Loto-Québec until he retired in 2016). No charges have been filed in Operation Mâchurer since. Also, Charest is not mentioned as a subject of interest in Plourde’s affidavit.

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Plourde’s goal, as laid out in the affidavit, was to enter the offices surreptitiously but only if the people working with her could enter the offices at the same time Revenue Quebec investigators working for UPAC executed their warrant.

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“The opportunity to enter the premises in a secret manner, simultaneous to the execution of the Revenue Quebec search warrants, minimizes the risks of compromising the current investigation that is underway. With the presence of members of the Sûreté du Québec’s technical support team, the goal is to know precisely what security systems are in place, to copy data to access the premises, to take photos and measurements,” Plourde wrote in the affidavit. The second half of the same paragraph was redacted in the version obtained by the Montreal Gazette.

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Five days after Revenue Quebec executed their search warrant, Plourde filed a report on what happened with her request. She stated the warrant was not executed because what was authorized by a judge “was too limited.”

Less than six months later, on Feb. 6, 2017, Bibeau filed a motion at the Montreal courthouse challenging the legality of Revenue Quebec’s warrant. The motion notes that staff at Bibeau’s offices noticed a strange series of events beginning the day after it was carried out. Someone noticed that a blank security card to access the office building was missing and had been activated under a woman’s name. The card was quickly cancelled, but on the night of Oct. 16, 2016, someone tried to access the building on Arthur-Sauvé Blvd. using the same card. Also, five days after Revenue Quebec executed the warrant, someone who worked in another office located in the building noticed there were problems with the front door entrance. A repairman who was called in the following day noticed someone had installed a high-tech device that could allow a person to open the door from a distance.

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Operation Mâchurer is focused on the Quebec Liberal Party’s financing between 2001 and 2012. More specifically, it is centred on how Bibeau raised funds for the party’s now infamous “Riding 127,” so named because of its placement on a spreadsheet the Liberals kept to record donations. The spreadsheet was broken down by the province’s 125 electoral divisions. So-called “sectorial” contributions were placed on line 127-51 of the spreadsheet. As described in Plourde’s request, “this financing was solicited at the level of large businesses in Quebec like engineering firms, legal firms and entrepreneurs through a system of straw-man donations.” Large firms would ask their employees to make donations to the Liberal party and the employees would be reimbursed through bonuses. One coordinator for the Liberals told the police in 2014 that he estimated that between $3 million and $4 million was raised under the “sectorial” section of the spreadsheet during a period of four years.

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Bibeau is alleged to have been the person in charge of raising money for “Riding 127” for the Liberals. According to the affidavit, Trépanier gave two statements to the SQ, including one on Jan. 9, 2014, during which she said: “Marc Bibeau was the only person who had a personal category” on the spreadsheet. As part of Operation Mâchurer, UPAC has seized an email Trépanier sent to Bibeau’s assistant on July 7, 2008 in which Trépanier asked: “Is the ‘boss of all’ in the office today????” It is believed to be a reference to Bibeau even though, on an official level, he was never recorded as being the head of fundraising for the party.

The affidavit quotes allegations from the heads of several firms that have been reported on extensively in the past, including during the Charbonneau Commission. They said they agreed with Bibeau’s requests for donations because the implication was they’d lose out on potentially lucrative government contracts if they did not. But in June 2015, Luc Benoît, the head of the engineering firm Tecsult, made a more serious allegation while giving a statement to police. According to the affidavit, he described Bibeau as “the entrance door toward obtaining information on government projects” and said that, during a meeting held at a hotel in Dorval on Jan. 13, 2005, Bibeau suggested he could drag out negotiations concerning the extension of the métro system into Laval. Bibeau claimed to wield enough influence within the Liberal government to have the location of the extension changed. Plourde highlighted this allegation while summarizing the need for the warrant.

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