Documents unsealed in court today suggest that Jean Charest's ex-deputy premier Nathalie Normandeau went against the advice of bureaucrats to help engineering firm Roche obtain an $11-million contract. (Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press)
Last July, UPAC secretly raided Quebec Liberal Party headquarters in Montreal.
The documents unsealed today show that UPAC investigators were looking for information related to Normandeau's involvement with the 2007 awarding of a provincial subsidy to refurbish a Boisbriand, Que., water treatment facility.
Normandeau, who was municipal affairs minister at the time, overruled senior bureaucrats to award the $11-million contract to engineering firm Roche.
The documents suggest the contact was a reward for fundraising done by Roche for Normandeau and the Liberal Party.
Normandeau, who was deputy premier under Jean Charest, has been targeted by UPAC in the past, mainly for her financing activities.
She has been linked to a straw man, or prête-nom, scheme in which people donated money that wasn't their own to the Liberal Party. Five people who attended an Oct. 9, 2008, fundraiser for Normandeau were fined in October 2013 for donating in this fashion.
Normandeau issued a statement late Wednesday in which she denied ever being manipulated. She maintained that she always fulfilled her functions with "integrity, rigour and honesty." She also said the Boisbriand water treatment facility contract was subject to close scrutiny prior to being awarded to Roche.
Roche was raided by UPAC investigators in January 2014.
No charges have been laid so far in relation to these allegations, but the documents indicate investigators believe they have grounds to eventually lay fraud, conspiracy and breach of trust charges.
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