Mayor Gérald Tremblay was in high dudgeon upon learning by way of news reports that the provincial government had sicced its new anti-corruption squad on Montreal city hall to investigate Tremblay's scandalridden administration.
The mayor didn't dispute the government's right to launch such a probe, but professed to be sorely aggrieved by Public Security Minister Robert Dutil's failure to extend him the courtesy of a heads-up call to let him know what was about to be unleashed upon him.
Maybe it would have been the nice thing to do, but then niceties aren't the prime necessity in dealing with the kind of mess that Tremblay's administration has made of civic governance in this town. And neither niceties nor even due process were observed by senior officials in the administration when they undertook their own internal investigations, which included illicitly opening the emails of Jacques Bergeron, the city's auditor general, and council speaker and Lachine borough mayor Claude Dauphin.
In any case, it's not standard practice for the targets of police investigations to be tipped off when those probes are launched. But then it's the Tremblay administration's failure to adhere to standard practice that brought things to this wretched pass. It was the revelation of the spying operation against Dauphin, suspected of dodgy dealings in relation to a municipal grant to a demolition firm, that turned out to be the drop that overflowed the proverbial vase and tipped the provincial government's hand against Tremblay's administration. In that case the correct procedure would have been to call in an outside authority to investigate Dauphin, and if hacking his emails was deemed necessary, do it after having obtained a warrant from a judge.
The mayor's flailing attempt to make himself appear hard done by also included the insinuation that the Charest government is scapegoating him to distract attention from its failure thus far to make a serious dent into alleged construction-industry corruption. There's no question that such a provincewide investigation must be pursued. But there's also no denying that the rot at Montreal city hall cried out for intervention by a higher power. Even before the spying incidents came to light, the administration was dogged by evidence of impropriety involving its housing and development agency, its land transactions, its dealings with private security firms and the notorious water-meter boondoggle.
The anti-corruption squad has been given a broad mandate by the public-security minister to investigate whatever it deems necessary to probe. It needs to take the time required to do a thorough job of stable-cleaning. But there is also a need for acting with as much dispatch as possible, since the very fact that such a probe is under way tarnishes the city's image and threatens to disrupt its functioning and that of other Montreal Island municipalities with which it shares responsibility for vital public services.
The first order of business should be to clear up the matter of the auditor general and either restore him to his crucial function or make way for the appointment of a new one.
Finally, the investigation's findings should be fully revealed at the earliest appropriate time. Montrealers have already waited too long to find out what's been going on at their city hall.