MONTREAL — If Quebec's largest labour federation had had its way, the Charbonneau Commission would never have happened.

After more than a month of damaging testimony linking some of the highest-ranking executives within the FTQ to organized crime, it had become abundantly clear why those executives weren't keen on the idea of a public inquiry examining corruption in the province's construction industry.

What became clear on Tuesday, however, was just how far the FTQ was willing to go to stop the commission from ever getting off the ground.

As former FTQ-Construction president Jean Lavallée took the stand for a third day, Justice France Charbonneau heard evidence suggesting that he and former FTQ president Michel Arsenault planned to use their political connections within the Parti Québécois to prevent the launch of an inquiry in mid-2009.

In a police wiretap recording from April of that year, Arsenault references a "deal with (Claude) Blanchet" — the husband of Quebec Premier Pauline Marois. The bottom line, Arsenault explains on the tape, is that the PQ "won't touch" the debate surrounding a possible inquiry. The then-Liberal government was reportedly considering a public probe in the wake of revelations about possible ties to organized crime within the FTQ, but there was little pressure from the opposition PQ to follow through. That apparently suited Arsenault just fine.

"We'll talk to Pauline," he adds on the recording.

Lavallée also makes mention of "our friends within the PQ" during the conversation.

Marois has made no secret of the fact that she met repeatedly with Arsenault (who is no longer head of the labour federation) and has defended those meetings, saying it's normal for politicians to interact with people from various spheres, including the province's labour unions. Her husband was the head of the union's multibillion-dollar investment fund until the late 1990s.

The PQ would eventually wade deeply into the debate surrounding a proposed public inquiry into corruption and collusion in the construction industry, and the party pushed hard for the creation of the Charbonneau Commission in 2010 and 2011.

Former premier Jean Charest finally created the Charbonneau Commission in the fall of 2011. The public hearings got underway in May 2012, and since taking power, the PQ has granted Charbonneau an 18-month extension on her mandate.

There is no evidence that Lavallée or Arsenault actually followed up on their phone conversation and met with Marois or other members of the PQ to prevent the inquiry from taking shape in 2009.

On the stand Tuesday, Lavallée denied there were any follow-ups and also continued to deny any and all wrongdoing during his more than two decades as president of FTQ-Construction. He did acknowledge, however, that he was a regular donor to the PQ and that his wife worked for the party for a decade.

"I had no meetings with the PQ (about preventing an inquiry)," he said, but then added that he wished he had done so. Lavallée was openly critical of the commission on Tuesday, telling Justice Charbonneau that he had been "convicted in advance ... so I'm telling you I'm frustrated to be at this inquiry and convicted in advance."

Lavallée defended his decision to do business with certain people linked to organized crime, saying he was unaware of any active ties. If he had been, he said, he would have intervened and put a stop to it.

"We are not corrupt people," Lavallée said of Quebec's union leaders. "We work hard."

He is expected to be back on the stand on Wednesday morning.



