7 ms·

The corruption in Montreal is more visible than in many other metropolitan regions places, but the city and province do a lot more than other areas to bring it

by ABCLAW 6y ago

The corruption in Montreal is more visible than in many other metropolitan regions places, but the city and province do a lot more than other areas to bring it to light and fight it. My estimation is that if we had a similar level of effort into looking into other regions, we'd see similar or greater issues. The refusal to look into real-estate or casino based money laundering as well as substantially counterproductive financial secrecy laws make for lots of issues in Canada. Is there grift in Montreal? You betcha. Is there grift in Toronto? You betcha, but it doesn't make the news.

busterarm 6y ago
I mean, that grift extends all the way to your PM and political dividing lines are preventing it from being properly investigated. This is a great shame.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  The US president made his career in casinos, development, and high end real estate... It's shameful but not really rare.
  - NicoJuicy 6y ago
    The president would never have had his first and greatest success without his dad ( Trump tower). He mostly does name licensing these days.
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      He's being compared to Justin Treadeau, who basically owes his entire political career to being Pierre Treadeau's son. Nepotism encourages such underworld connections.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - busterarm 6y ago
      His first and greatest success was actually the Grand Hyatt New York @ Grand Central Station in 1980. That area of NYC had been completely derelict and run down at the time. Midtown East was NYC's red light district up until the 1950s when it moved across town to Times Square. It still is the area to this day where most of the asian brothels in the city are. Anyway, the Grand Hyatt project completely revitalized that neighborhood. Then Trump put his (rejected) bid in for the Javits Center project and was the project's biggest salesman to the public. His proposal for which streets to develop nearly exactly became the Hudson Yards project 30 years later...
  - TravHatesMe 6y ago
    The Canadian PM got caught red handed in a number of scandals, lining the pockets of his friends with tax payer money. Overpaid $100 million in COVID medical equipment; his former parties' MP setup a shell company 7 days prior to be the middleman between govt and equipment imports (pocketing a nice $10K per unit purchased). Add on that a huge no-bid contract awarded to his favourite buddies that run a for-profit charity that has promoted his brand for years, paid his family members, expensed lavish trips, etc. These guys had zero experience in these domains. Then he prorogued parliament to prevent investigations. He continued with filibustering tactics, threatened an election during the pandemic when further inquiry was pushed. It is amazing how time and time again, his supporters entirely dismiss these things. Amazing that they are fine with a government with zero transparency and zero accountability, despite their platform clamouring for exactly that. Regardless of the party in power, I would be equally as disgusted. I wonder if people will wake up when they see the bleak financial situation that comes to light post-COVID. I haven't even mentioned his other previous ethics violations but I'll spare you the details.
    - ytwySXpMbS 6y ago
      Do you have any sources? I'd love to look into this more but can't find anything about the overpaying for Covid-19 medical equipment.
      - TravHatesMe 6y ago
        https://thepostmillennial.com/trudeau-liberals-overpaid-100-million-for-ventilators-gifted-contract-to-former-liberal-mp https://thepostmillennial.com/trudeau-liberals-overpaid-100-... https://www.journaldequebec.com/2020/10/21/des-millions-pour-un-ex-depute?fbclid=IwAR0H9Pa3ECE0hmB88fhBOHhCWP_Rz1fXsYqhfuC2nSqBGfL-eXilQe3pSK4 https://www.journaldequebec.com/2020/10/21/des-millions-pour...
        mthoms 6y ago
        I'm not saying your overall point is incorrect but using "The Post Millennial" as a source is a very curious choice. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Post_Millennial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Post_Millennial - >The Post Millennial is a conservative Canadian online news magazine started in 2017. It publishes national and local news and has a large amount of opinion content. It has been criticized for releasing misinformation and articles written by fake personas, for past employment of an editor with ties to white supremacist-platforming and pro-Kremlin media outlets, and for opaque funding and political connections. >The Post Millennial has been described by Buzzfeed News as an advocacy organization for the Conservative Party operating through opaque personal connections and undeclared social media ties. >In July 2020, The Daily Beast exposed an online network pushing United Arab Emirates propaganda against Qatar, Turkey and Iran, using op-eds placed in news outlets using fictitious authors. The Post Millennial published some of these articles. After being contacted by the Beast, it took the articles down without comment. If you don't trust Wikipedia on this, just have a look the topics and opinion pieces run by this "news" organization. Hardly a reputable source by any stretch.
- refurb 6y ago
  Indeed. The former finance minister was just cleared of ethics violations because he firmly believed he had paid the $41,000 in travel expenses when in fact a charity funded by the Liberal gov't paid for it. I mean, it's pretty typically for a gov't official to lose track of $41,000 in expenses right? Happens every day.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    The guy's a former CEO of a ~2 billion dollar company, that's actually fairly believable. The rest of the claims are more damning.
linspace 6y ago
I love this related quote from The Wire: "You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the f* it's gonna take you."
refurb 6y ago
I'm not sure. I think your comparison with Toronto is probably fair, but I would say Montreal has a greater share of corruption than most major Canadian cities. Why? The presence of organized crime is probably a big factor. When you have crime families who have been established in Montreal for decades, I think that breeds more corruption than a city that has a less organized set of criminal elements.
dghughes 6y ago
And I wouldn't trust Sûreté du Québec I'd rather RCMP.
graeme 6y ago
There’s something especially dysfunctional about Montreal grift where it involves physically destroying the built environment every year and impeding traffic, creation pollution and making excess noise. I’d prefer it if they could just take kickbacks on financial shenanigans.

by ABCLAW 6y ago

busterarm 6y ago

I mean, that grift extends all the way to your PM and political dividing lines are preventing it from being properly investigated. This is a great shame.

boomboomsubban 6y ago
The US president made his career in casinos, development, and high end real estate... It's shameful but not really rare.
- NicoJuicy 6y ago
  The president would never have had his first and greatest success without his dad ( Trump tower). He mostly does name licensing these days.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    He's being compared to Justin Treadeau, who basically owes his entire political career to being Pierre Treadeau's son. Nepotism encourages such underworld connections.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - busterarm 6y ago
    His first and greatest success was actually the Grand Hyatt New York @ Grand Central Station in 1980. That area of NYC had been completely derelict and run down at the time. Midtown East was NYC's red light district up until the 1950s when it moved across town to Times Square. It still is the area to this day where most of the asian brothels in the city are. Anyway, the Grand Hyatt project completely revitalized that neighborhood. Then Trump put his (rejected) bid in for the Javits Center project and was the project's biggest salesman to the public. His proposal for which streets to develop nearly exactly became the Hudson Yards project 30 years later...
- TravHatesMe 6y ago
  The Canadian PM got caught red handed in a number of scandals, lining the pockets of his friends with tax payer money. Overpaid $100 million in COVID medical equipment; his former parties' MP setup a shell company 7 days prior to be the middleman between govt and equipment imports (pocketing a nice $10K per unit purchased). Add on that a huge no-bid contract awarded to his favourite buddies that run a for-profit charity that has promoted his brand for years, paid his family members, expensed lavish trips, etc. These guys had zero experience in these domains. Then he prorogued parliament to prevent investigations. He continued with filibustering tactics, threatened an election during the pandemic when further inquiry was pushed. It is amazing how time and time again, his supporters entirely dismiss these things. Amazing that they are fine with a government with zero transparency and zero accountability, despite their platform clamouring for exactly that. Regardless of the party in power, I would be equally as disgusted. I wonder if people will wake up when they see the bleak financial situation that comes to light post-COVID. I haven't even mentioned his other previous ethics violations but I'll spare you the details.
  - ytwySXpMbS 6y ago
    Do you have any sources? I'd love to look into this more but can't find anything about the overpaying for Covid-19 medical equipment.
    - TravHatesMe 6y ago
      https://thepostmillennial.com/trudeau-liberals-overpaid-100-million-for-ventilators-gifted-contract-to-former-liberal-mp https://thepostmillennial.com/trudeau-liberals-overpaid-100-... https://www.journaldequebec.com/2020/10/21/des-millions-pour-un-ex-depute?fbclid=IwAR0H9Pa3ECE0hmB88fhBOHhCWP_Rz1fXsYqhfuC2nSqBGfL-eXilQe3pSK4 https://www.journaldequebec.com/2020/10/21/des-millions-pour...
      - mthoms 6y ago
        I'm not saying your overall point is incorrect but using "The Post Millennial" as a source is a very curious choice. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Post_Millennial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Post_Millennial - >The Post Millennial is a conservative Canadian online news magazine started in 2017. It publishes national and local news and has a large amount of opinion content. It has been criticized for releasing misinformation and articles written by fake personas, for past employment of an editor with ties to white supremacist-platforming and pro-Kremlin media outlets, and for opaque funding and political connections. >The Post Millennial has been described by Buzzfeed News as an advocacy organization for the Conservative Party operating through opaque personal connections and undeclared social media ties. >In July 2020, The Daily Beast exposed an online network pushing United Arab Emirates propaganda against Qatar, Turkey and Iran, using op-eds placed in news outlets using fictitious authors. The Post Millennial published some of these articles. After being contacted by the Beast, it took the articles down without comment. If you don't trust Wikipedia on this, just have a look the topics and opinion pieces run by this "news" organization. Hardly a reputable source by any stretch.
refurb 6y ago
Indeed. The former finance minister was just cleared of ethics violations because he firmly believed he had paid the $41,000 in travel expenses when in fact a charity funded by the Liberal gov't paid for it. I mean, it's pretty typically for a gov't official to lose track of $41,000 in expenses right? Happens every day.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  The guy's a former CEO of a ~2 billion dollar company, that's actually fairly believable. The rest of the claims are more damning.

linspace 6y ago

I love this related quote from The Wire: "You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the f* it's gonna take you."

refurb 6y ago

I'm not sure. I think your comparison with Toronto is probably fair, but I would say Montreal has a greater share of corruption than most major Canadian cities. Why? The presence of organized crime is probably a big factor. When you have crime families who have been established in Montreal for decades, I think that breeds more corruption than a city that has a less organized set of criminal elements.

dghughes 6y ago

And I wouldn't trust Sûreté du Québec I'd rather RCMP.

graeme 6y ago

There’s something especially dysfunctional about Montreal grift where it involves physically destroying the built environment every year and impeding traffic, creation pollution and making excess noise. I’d prefer it if they could just take kickbacks on financial shenanigans.