Coaxed back into the spotlight, Bellemare unleashed several other explosive allegations in the last three weeks: that he was pressured into nominating two judges and promoting another, one of whom was the son of a prominent Liberal fundraiser. He did so, he says, at the behest of Franco Fava, another Liberal fundraiser. As well, Bellemare said he regularly saw envelopes of money passed from Liberal organizers to Liberal politicians. He said he met with Charest five times to express his concerns about the influence-peddling in the nomination of judges. In one instance, he remembers approaching the premier at the national assembly cafeteria’s salad bar.
Fava, who didn’t return calls from Maclean’s, denied the former justice minister’s allegations, and a Montreal-area Liberal organizer said Bellemare’s comments reek of sour grapes. “He was hoping to get enough money from the Liberals to fund his election campaigns, but Fava told him to go to hell,” the source told Maclean’s recently.
Bellemare is unfazed. “I have an excellent memory,” he says. “I have letters from Charest. I have notes. I can back it all up.”
The veracity (and timing) of Bellemare’s sortie aside, this much remains true: ever since Charest took office, the Liberal Party of Quebec has been an effective and prolific fundraiser. Transport Minister Norman MacMillan said ministers are expected to raise $100,000 a year and, along with two cabinet colleagues, said it was normal for corporations to donate to political parties. (In fact, corporate donations haven’t been allowed in Quebec since 1977.) The party raised over $50 million in the last seven years—nearly double the PQ’s effort. In 2008, the average Liberal donation, $413, was nearly triple that of the PQ.
In the court of public opinion, it seems Bellemare has already won. According to a poll published in Le Journal de Montréal, nearly seven out of 10 Quebecers believe the former justice minister over the premier. The allegations, and subsequent unfavourable polls, have sent Charest’s government into a tailspin.
And yet what seems clearer today is Charest’s intent to defy pundits and ride out the storm. By paring down the size of government, hiking artificially low tuition and electricity rates and introducing health care user fees, Charest is in many ways making good on his abandoned promises from 2003.
The opposition invoked Bellemare’s name no less than 12 times during a recent question period, the national assembly’s daily festival of catcalls and canned outrage. Throughout it all, Charest wore the same half-smirk. Quebec’s only three-term premier in five decades is usually at his best when he is mad, and the last few months of relative pre-Bellemare calm had seemed to lull him into lethargy.
“Two weeks ago, I thought he was done and gone. I didn’t think he’d finish his term. Now I’m not so sure,” says Gérard Deltell, leader of the opposition Action démocratique du Québec. “His career is quite impressive, you have to admit. They’ve written his obituary about 50 times in his 26 years in politics.”
Liberal premier Robert Bourassa left politics in 1976 “the most hated man in Quebec,” in the words of one Liberal MNA, only to return to power 17 years later. Bourassa’s mug was pasted everywhere at the Liberal convention last weekend, as if to remind everyone that you can always fight your way back to the top. Jean Charest seems to think he can, anyway.
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