Last month after Radio-Canada's Enquête reported troubling allegations of collusion in the construction industry, Finance Minister Raymond Bachand said calling the police was more important than a public commission of inquiry that would be a mere "spectacle."
Well, in a damning report on the contract-tendering system at Transport Québec, the auditor-general found, among other things, a case of bid-rigging in 2004. But, oops, the ministry's officials decided at the time not to call the Sûreté du Québec.
This raises the possibility that there were, or still are, other cases of bid-rigging at the ministry.
As for calling the Competition Bureau instead, it doesn't seem to be all that effective. The bureau is a federal body that covers the entire country, and fails to respond to the specific situations in individual provinces.
Nevertheless, the Charest government still says no to a public inquiry that could expose whatever systemic practices allowed the mounting allegations of collusion, influence-peddling, price-fixing, repeated cost overruns, and money-laundering by organized crime in the infrastructure business where tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars are spent.
The police and competition bureau can expose crimes, but not the underlying system that allowed them to happen.
Nor could they find out if, at the municipal and provincial levels, there is complicity within the public service or among elected officials. Nor could they see if too much influence is being exercised by private firms in the contract-tendering process.
Nor can they show to taxpayers how generous the construction and engineering firms that get most of the multi-million dollar contracts are to provincial and municipal parties. Or how many posh jobs they end up offering former elected officials and public servants.
Only an independent commission of inquiry could do that. And perhaps a government that keeps saying no to it, while the vast majority of Quebecers and opinion leaders keep demanding one, fears the negative political impact from such an exercise in transparency.
The government is lucky in a way. It has a majority and needn't fear being defeated on a thorny ethical issue that questions how it manages the public purse. Plus, with no election for years, people have time to forget it all. Right? I'm not so sure.
In the meantime, the Charest government has shifted its strategy. It's now throwing as much mud at the official opposition as possible in the hope that this diversionary tactic takes off some pressure.
So yesterday, Quebecers were treated to one of the worst mud-slinging sessions ever during a National
Assembly question period. The government used a well-timed article in that morning's Le Soleil to try to turn the ethics table on Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois.
It alleged that her husband Claude Blanchet, while head of the Société générale de financement, owned shares in companies that had business dealings with the SGF. Although the newspaper article made no allegations of illegalities, the innuendoes flew from the government's side.
Of course, this tactic might well prompt voters to say: "Oh well, politicians are all crooks, anyway." But feeding voter cynicism for short-term political gain seems to matter little to this government.
And it matters little because even with no election in sight, there is growing worry among Liberal MNAs that the government's refusal to set up a public inquiry might hurt them down the road. Thus mudslinging becomes the chosen weapon to limit the damage to the provincial Liberal name.
So Raymond Bachand needn't worry about any "spectacle" at any commission of inquiry. That's because the real spectacle - the tasteless one - is currently going at the National Assembly, courtesy of one nervous government.