It was another big week for scandal -or at least the perception of scandal -in Quebec. The firestorm of demand for a full inquiry into construction contracts, party fundraising, and municipal corruption blazed hotter than ever, sucking in oxygen from a drum roll of accusations and insinuations.




This newspaper, like almost everybody in Quebec, has been saying for months that an inquiry, with a broad mandate, a big budget, plenty of experienced investigators, and full subpoena powers, is essential and overdue.
Some expected -wrongly, so far -that Premier Jean Charest would bow to the pressure after the Quebec Federation of Labour, the biggest union presence in construction, reversed itself this week and joined the chorus demanding an inquiry.
But Charest ignored that, as he ignored almost daily revelations -or at least claims -of wrongdoing in high places. There was powerful symbolism in the resignation of Marc Gasconof St. Jeromeaspresidentof theUnion des municipalites du Quebec. He is among several north-of-Montreal mayors facing separate claims of conflict-of-interest in dealings with contractors or developers. His UMQ resignation seemed to many like a signal that shady dealings are simply everywhere.
Meanwhile Gilles Vaillancourt, longtime mayor of Laval, was hit with unproven claims that he offered envelopes of cash to National Assembly candidates in Laval on two occasions nine years apart. The week's crowning touch came when former Montreal police chief Jacques Duchesneau stepped down temporarily as head of Quebec's project to fight collusion in highway contracting, after a news report about irregularities -which he denies -in the financing of his 1998 Montreal mayoralty bid.
Quebecers can be excused for believing rot and slime are everywhere. But even politicians are innocent until proven guilty, and while accusations and innuendo have been sloshing around, proof has been distinctly lacking in at least some of these cases. Certain demands for a vast inquiry into everything, right now, have the odour of over-reaction, not to say panic.
That said, we do believe firmly that an inquiry there must be. The perception of cover-up is nearly universal, and only an inquiry can reverse that. But an inquiry runs the risk of being interminable, ponderous, lawyer-infested, costly, divisive, and inconclusive. Carefully-tailored terms of reference could help: The probe should go back, say, 12 years, to include practices during the last PQ government. Special legislation, akin to what Ottawa is now proposing to govern criminal "mega-trials," could help streamline the process. A reasonable deadline -18 or 21 months, say -would be useful.
The point would be first to clean up construction and party financing for the future, and second to punish wrongdoing in the past. In Japan, a concerted effort has succeeded, officials believe, in pushing organized crime out of the construction sector, from which the mob had been extracting up to three per cent of total spending. Japan did this, the New York Times reported this week, mainly by "monitoring companies and imposing tougher penalties on ones that do business with the mob."
Sounds good to us. But first we have to get a handle on the problem. An inquiry would be no bed of roses. But it would be better than the bed of thorns upon which our political class -and all of us -find ourselves today. Get on with it, premier.