MONTREAL—Danielle Bédard has had liquid cement splattered on her car, Facebook threats to set fire to her property, animal feces stuffed in her mailbox, windows broken at her home and has endured menacing verbal abuse at council meetings in the Quebec town of Sainte-Julienne.

It is the price she says she has paid for denouncing corruption in the municipality of 10,000 people north of Montreal and for seeking to unseat the incumbent mayor, who denies any involvement in the intimidation tactics against her.

“It’s been pretty difficult to live in Sainte-Julienne so I’ve had to take security measures to ensure my protection,” Bédard says, noting the surveillance cameras at her home, a camera in her car and her hypervigilance on the campaign trail.

Such is the state of democracy in Quebec that, as the Nov. 3 municipal elections loom, threats, intimidation, vandalism and other sorts of thuggery are thriving in campaigns across the province.

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Just this week, for example, Lachute city council candidate Alain Lanoue found two windows in his motorhome smashed overnight as well as the rear passenger window in his pickup truck. He is convinced it was a political attack both because of the large election sign posted on the truck as well as his campaign promise to attack corruption in the town of 12,500 people located between Montreal and Ottawa.

It took a secret recording in the now-notorious suburb of Laval this week to bring the issue to a head. Released to Radio-Canada on Monday, the tape featured mayoral candidate Claire Le Bel meeting with the man who ruled the city for 23 years, Gilles Vaillancourt.

Vaillancourt, who’s facing criminal charges that he ran Quebec’s third-largest city as a criminal enterprise, can be heard offering to have his friends take care of Le Bel’s campaign financing and confiding that, despite provincial laws to crack down on illegal donations, “another system” has already taken its place.

The recording, which Le Bel made public and has been handed to police, set off a media storm. It reached its crescendo that night as Le Bel’s campaign director, Rény Gagnon, was driving home and realized he had a flat tire. He says he pulled off the highway to fix it and was confronted and roughed up by two unknown men. The Journal de Montreal reported Friday that police have doubts about the accusation. Gagnon maintains he is telling the truth, but he nevertheless stopped working on the mayoral campaign Friday.

Quebec is no stranger to dirty politics. A special police unit has launched anti-corruption investigations in towns large and small, resulting so far in the arrest of mayors in big cities such as Montreal and Laval, but also in small towns such as Mascouche and Saint-Rémi. The Charbonneau commission, a public inquiry into corruption in the province, has heard of bid-rigging and kickback schemes involving engineering and construction firms as well as city councillors, mayors and senior bureaucrats.

Cities that are named at the commission or that are being probed by police also gain the attention of the Ligue d’Action Civique (Civic Action League). The league seeks to improve local governance, which in the present climate translates to acting as a corruption watchdog and a friend to candidates in the races it judges to be the most problematic.

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This fall’s elections have Frédéric Lapointe, the head of league, criss-crossing Quebec to meet candidates, reporters and concerned citizens. He has been to the tourist town of Percé, at the eastern tip of the Gaspé Peninsula. He has visited the western reaches of Gatineau, which is across the river from Ottawa and home to a large population of federal civil servants. But the real hot spots, he says, are in the cities and towns just north of Montreal

“It’s a combination of political parties financed in unusual ways several years ago and — I’m not scared to say — the involvement of organized crime in the economy, notably home construction,” Lapointe says. “It’s not a surprise that we see an increased number of intimidation cases or threats against citizens who pose questions.”

One of those cases has emerged in the town of Boisbriand, north of Montreal, from city council candidate Aymeric St-Marseille. One-third of his campaign signs have been vandalized and he began receiving up to five menacing telephone calls daily at all hours of the day and night. They began around Sept. 20 and lasted for about three weeks until he reported it to police. Now patrol cars make a regular pass by his residence, he says.

“I cofounded the Mouvement contre le corruption municipal (Movement Against Municipal Corruption). They know I’m incorruptible,” St-Marseille says.

Back in Sainte-Julienne, incumbent Mayor Marcel Jetté has been the target of Bédard’s anti-corruption ire.

Jetté was named at the Charbonneau commission for allegedly accepting the services of engineering firm Roche in return for favours. Gilles Cloutier, a former Roche employee, testified April 30 that he made the proposition to Jetté at a lunch ahead of the 1999 election.

“You won’t have to take care of financing, nor organization, nor communications. I’ll deliver the goods so that you win,” Cloutier recalled telling Jetté.

“In return . . . it was discussed that I knew the transport ministry was renovating (a road) in Sainte-Julienne and it was a contract worth $3.5-million and that I wanted it.”

Jetté denies having a secret agreement with Cloutier or knowing about any illegal campaign financing. The two men have not had any dealings since 2003, he says.

“This guy came into town and people had faith in him, I had faith in him too, but he pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes . . . People understand that,” Jetté says.

As for Bédard, Jetté has clearly had enough of her accusations.

“I’ve been in politics first as a councillor in 1995 and in 1999 as mayor and my political party has never been accused of anything. No infractions. Nothing,” he says.

Bédard, he says, is a sore loser. She garnered only 327 votes when she ran for mayor in 2009 and has since been lodging complaints that have cost the municipality thousands of dollars to research and process.

“So far there has been nothing that has come out,” Jetté says. “It’s me who should be accusing her of harassment.”