Debating hiring

Going back to December 2005 and Mayor Marie-Andrée Beaudoin and her MICU team had been in office a month. Borough manager Louis B. Provencher announced his resignation at the request of council, and Beaudoin's former campaign manager, Éric Lachapelle, stepped in to fill Provencher's shoes. Beaudoin's rationale for the move was that to improve efficiency and speed of service, "without casting into doubt the abilities of Mr. Provencher," Beaudoin said in the Dec. 25, 2005 edition of the Courier Bordeaux-Cartierville.

Three months later, it was Roger Benhamou's turn to get the axe. The then-interim public-works manager, who had been on the job a year, was dumped in favour of Réjean Durocher, who had previously worked in Repentigny. That was also the point of origin for Daniel Labrecque, Durocher's assistant, who is currently serving a suspension for alleged improprieties involving favoritism in awarding snow-removal contracts.

In October, 2006, culture, sports, social development and recreation manager Daniel Moreau was shown the door because "the new administrative structure demands competences Mr. Moreau does not have," said our Oct. 8, 2006 story on the move.

A former political aide to Marcel Tremblay, Montreal mayor Gerald Tremblay's brother, was also hired at that time.

In the cases of Provencher and Benhamou’s positions, the borough had to pay two salaries for a few months, due to the city's policy on departing managers, we reported on May 7, 2006.

The list doesn't end there. Noushig Eloyan cited the hiring of Marc Picard, who was formerly Beaudoin's assistant at CDEC, back when she was director general before resigning to work as mayor. Picard, who succeeded Beaudoin as DG of CDEC left his job in July to enter public service as industrial commissioner, replacing France Fortin.

Eloyan cited a 2006 interview in the Journal de Montreal, where Beaudoin admitted to "hiring political allies that would provide support and shared values as well."

Without getting further into detail, borough citizens Stéphane Mélançon, Jean-Claude Lanthier and Christine Dolbec, all members of the borough's citizens' association all cast doubts onto the borough's 'transparent' hiring processes.

At Côté's request, the borough manager outlined the regulations for hiring someone new.

"When a post comes open, we must first post it internally at the borough. If no one has the interest or the skills for the job, then we open the job up to all employees of the City of Montreal, and if there is still nobody for the job, the approval must come from the city's director general to open it up externally," he explained.

Beaudoin added that the RASOP (Revue des activités, des services, des opérations et des programmes) report can explain certain changes that have gone on at the borough. The program was designed to improve efficiency and the sustainability of services. Based on these principles, the number of departments at the borough was reduced from six to four.

"The open positions were posted according to the rules. The candidates were evaluated with impartiality, underwent interviews and examinations, without exception," she said, adding she has "the utmost confidence in all our employees’ competence."

That didn't answer Côté's question, though, which was "why did we get rid of employees who all had between 10 and 20 years' experience?"

(Translated by Marc Lalonde)