The Greatest Scandal in Canadian History
Greetings from San Diego!
Hurricane Milton has hit my publisher
Oceanview Publishing is headquartered in Sarasota, one of the areas hit hardest by the Milton Hurricane. Thankfully the people there evacuated and I don’t believe that anyone was injured. I am hoping that none of their houses and the Oceanview office were not severely damaged.
I feel lucky living in San Diego. We just have to worry about earthquakes.
A Sale for Saving Myles
For October only, you can get an ebook copy for $1.99. Your friends have $2, don’t they? I’d appreciate it if you can get them an ebook by pressing here.
The Greatest Scandal in Canadian History
In the last newsletter I described how my former client in Montreal, SNC-Lavalin, was involved in the Grand Man Made River in Libya. In 2011, when the civil war took place, Muammar Gaddafi’s son, Saadi, needed to get out of the country. Fast. An SNC executive facilitated a payment of $200K to charter a private jet to fly him to Niger. But that wasn’t the only crime SNC was involved with. The construction of the super hospital in Montreal has been called “the biggest fraud corruption in the history of Canada.”
The saga began in 2007, when the McGill University Health Center (MUHC) called for bids for a CAD 1.5 billion contract to build a state-of-the-art hospital. Arthur Porter, the CEO of MUHC, and another employee coordinated the bidding process. Porter was also a senior official in the Canadian government and very involved in the country’s security. Porter and his colleague apparently passed on technical information to SNC so they would have an advantage in the bidding process. SNC bribed Porter for his services through a special company in the Bahamas. Is it any wonder that SNC won the building contract in 2010?
Some executives at SNC grew suspicious. In 2011 they wondered why one of their employees wanted CAD 34 million related to a contract in Alberta to be paid outside the country. The next year, Pierre Duhaime, the CEO of SNC, was arrested and charged with using a counterfeit document during the bidding process. The fake document was key to transferring the payoff money to Porter. A year later, Porter, his accomplice at the hospital, and an employee of SNC were charged with fraud and money laundering. Maybe that was why plans were canceled to pave an “Arthur T. Porter Way” street on the hospital property.
Then it really gets weird. Porter and his wife fled to Panama in 2013, where they were arrested based on a warrant from a Montreal courthouse. Porter’s wife returned but Porter remained in Panama. He was a radiation oncologist and was treating himself for lung cancer. Unsurprisingly, he died there. His wife returned to Canada and was convicted in 2014. She was sentenced to 33 months in prison. Apparently she never got to see her husband again after leaving Panama.
Pierre Duhaime resigned from SNC in 2012 because of the scandal. He was later charged and in 2019 pleaded guilty for breach of trust and was sentenced to 20 months of house arrest. He didn’t get punished with a longer sentence because the prosecutor found a credibility problem with a key witness — Gilles Laramée, SNC-Lavalin’s former chief financial officer. (I worked with Gilles and his people back in the 90s when Bank of Montreal participated on the Great Man Made River Project in Libya.) The disciplinary council of the Order of Engineers of Quebec fined him and said that he’d tainted “the honour and dignity of the profession.” SNC successfully sued Duhaime for more than CAD 2 million. The other employee at SNC pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 51 months in prison.
So how did this affect the construction of the giant hospital? It was completed. On the way from the Dorval airport you can see it on a hill that used to be a rail shipping container yard. However the total cost was CAD 2.355 billion, more than double the original estimate. Here is a photo by DarkFireTaker:
There are still many questions surrounding the scandal. Why didn’t Arthur Porter return to Canada to fight the fraud charges? He could have gotten bail and received more sophisticated cancer treatment than he got in Panama. He said he feared he would become a scapegoat if he returned. He also appeared fearful for his safety. Instead he was confined to a bad jail cell in Panama and treated himself with chemo drugs his daughters brought to him.
The crime writer in me finds this interesting. Did he really die there? Has his wife spent vacations outside of Canada? Then there are the questions about the Canadian government. Why didn’t Canada press harder for his extradition? And why did Panama ignore its own extradition laws? As chairman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, did Porter have secrets that the government did not want revealed? He was a big supporter of the Conservative party and had promised to interviewers that he had much to tell. He also denied all wrongdoing.
Where is Dudley Do-Right when you need him?
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Some books you might like
Percival Everett wrote American Fiction. I have not read that book but found the movie ingenious. James is also brilliantly inventive—both comical and heart-rending, James re-imagines Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the slave who accompanies Huck down the river. Jim has snuck into Judge Steven’s library, borrowed books, and taught himself how to read. He is more educated about the philosophy of freedom than any of the white folks. Much of this novel deals with code switching, where Jim talks one way to the white masters who want to think he is stupid, and another way to the other slaves. The whole concept of what it means to be White or Black is explored, as well as the meaning of being a slave. Jim still forms a close relationship with Huck so that the two of them genuinely love one another. But Everett manages some surprising twists, some of them hilariously comical and others tragic. But by the end, Jim has grown to be his own individual man and to represent his people. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was not only entertaining but thought provoking.
The Peacock and the Sparrow, by I.S. Berry, won the Best First Novel Edgar, International Thriller Writer and Barry awards. The New Yorker and NPR said it was A Best Book of the Year. I.S. Berry was a former CIA agent and brings rich experience to the novel. It is a finely written thriller about a jaded CIA agent in Bahrain who is ready to give up the spy business. But first he must uncover an Iranian plot to overthrow the monarchy in Bahrain. His problem is that he has become sympathetic to his informant and fallen in love with a mysterious local artist. He wonders what he is defending. I.S. Berry vividly describes the settings, as well as the culture that the hero must navigate. She also convincingly portrays a male point of view. In this murky world, no one is trustworthy and every authority is playing games.
Book Clubs
Do you have a book club or other event coming up where you’d like an author to present? Please contact me. I love talking with readers. When possible, I’m happy to meet in person. I’m also happy to Zoom. Email CarlVonderauAuthor@gmail.com for more information.
Until next time,
Carl
Thanks.
Excellent and fun