There are several ways to react to the growing body of evidence of corruption and collusion among construction companies responsible for Québec’s roads and bridges. A common one seems to be cynicism. In comments to the newspapers, you can almost hear the affected sighs of world-weary wisdom, and guffaws toward those people who – in their naïveté – might be genuinely shocked by what they read.
To paraphrase many of the comments I’ve read, the general gist of what the cynics say is, “You think this is anything new?”
80% of road contruction projects are controlled by the Montreal Mafia, reports the Globe and Mail, following a Radio-Canada investigation. And this morning, closer to home for those of us involved in the Sexy béton trilogy, we discover this story about Laval, where, of course, the Concorde overpass collapsed in 2006:
“Un petit groupe de huit entrepreneurs obtient les trois quarts des sommes versées par la Ville de Laval pour ses travaux de voirie et d’infrastructures, selon une compilation des soumissions publiées entre 2001 et 2008 dans le système officiel d’appel d’offres du gouvernement du Québec.” Bruno Bisson, La Presse, le 21 octobre
“A small group of eight entrepreneurs receive three quarters of the funds spent by the City of Laval for roadway and infrastructure projects, according to a compilation of bids published between 2001 and 2008 by the official public tendering system of the Québec government.”
[translation: Porte Parole]
At what point is a society capable of moving from cynicism to the outrage that is required for change?
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