Contract with Beauregard Environment | Laval has "lost control," accuse the opposition

Contract with Beauregard Environment | Laval has “lost control,” accuse the opposition

Posted On: July 13, 2023

On Tuesday night in Laval, a sewer cleaning job was awarded to Beauregard Environnement, a company blacklisted in Montreal for the contaminated sludge spill. The Boyer government reiterates that it has no choice but to do so, but the opposition accuses it of “losing control of the matter”.

Posted yesterday at 11:19am.

“The development of this case is surprising and particularly worrying. It’s really a blatant lack of seriousness and I think the administration has lost control on this matter,” denounced Isabelle Piché, councilor of Saint-François and member of the Action Laval party, on Wednesday.

The city initially removed the grant from the agenda during a municipal council meeting. However, on Tuesday evening, the Boyer government finally awarded Beauregard Environnement a $750,000 contract. The city claims it was “forced” to do so because the company won the tender as the lowest compliant bidder.

Mayor Stephane Boyer complained on Tuesday in The press failed to prevent the metropolitan banned company from doing business domestically and called for a law change to unify cities’ blacklists. His government is specifically asking Quebec to change that Law on contracts with public bodieswhich stipulates that only the Autorité des marchés publics (AMP) can enter a company in the register of unauthorized companies (RENA), which applies in all communes.

According to the city, such a change would be significant because it currently states that it cannot refuse the contract, even though Beauregard Environnement is on Montreal’s municipal “blacklist” for dumping contaminated sludge on agricultural land .

“Questions of Trust”

For the interim leader of the Parti Laval and Fabreville councilor, Claude Larochelle, “Mayor Boyer orchestrated everything at the last minute so as not to lose face, but it seems to me that the measures should have been taken months ago.” Colleague and I expressed our disagreement yesterday. We felt a real uneasiness about being presented with a fait accompli,” he pounded on Wednesday.

The confusion also remains for Isabelle Piché. “The mayor is defending himself behind his legal obligation […] But what we don’t understand is how come this company can still make offers? […] How come the mayor is in reaction mode but not taking any concrete action? She asks.

This file, she says, “raises doubts about the seriousness with which this task is actually carried out by the current members of the Executive Committee”.

The cabinet of Treasury Department President Sonia LeBel cautiously argued on Tuesday that Laval initially has responsibility for overseeing the contracts he awards at the Laval-Terrebonne Office of Integrity and Ethics (BIELT). Otherwise, Quebec argues, we must let the AMP do its job.

Misunderstanding, according to Boyer

In a statement Wednesday, Mayor Boyer said the opposition’s response was “not very edifying.” “It shows us that they don’t understand the rules that are in place. […] For Ville de Laval to blacklist a company on its own, it must have made a mistake on Laval territory. “We’ve done that with other companies in the past,” he says.

“The request we have made to the government is unprecedented,” Mr Boyer insisted, arguing however that such legislative changes “do not happen indefinitely” and will take time.

At the Council of Environmental Technology Companies of Quebec (CETEQ), Director General Kevin Morin is supporting Mr. Boyer in his efforts to push through Quebec’s law changes. “Currently, cities and different levels of government work in silos, but ultimately the lack of coherence between different policies creates loopholes in the system that are exploited by malicious companies,” he said.