{"id":100757,"date":"2017-05-02T23:21:26","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T03:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=100757"},"modified":"2017-05-02T23:21:26","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T03:21:26","slug":"police-to-probe-corruption-claims-made-by-police-union-against-quebec-liberals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/05\/02\/police-to-probe-corruption-claims-made-by-police-union-against-quebec-liberals\/","title":{"rendered":"Police to probe corruption claims made by police union against Quebec Liberals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Crown prosecutor’s office in Quebec called Tuesday for a criminal inquiry into corruption allegations made by the head of Montreal’s police union against the Quebec Liberal party. (Photo: mararie\/Flickr<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

QUEBEC \u2014 The Crown prosecutor’s office in Quebec called Tuesday for a criminal inquiry into corruption allegations made by the head of Montreal’s police union against the Quebec Liberal party.<\/p>\n

Union head Yves Francoeur claimed last Thursday on a Montreal radio station that the Crown cut short a fraud investigation into one former and one sitting Liberal party member of the legislature due to political interference.<\/p>\n

He alleged the Crown was ready to press charges but was blocked by someone high up in the government.<\/p>\n

Francoeur said the investigation included wiretap and surveillance, but he did not reveal any names.<\/p>\n

Annick Murphy, director of the Crown prosecutor’s office, said she formally asked the deputy minister of the Public Security Department to investigate Francoeur’s claims.<\/p>\n

Quebec provincial police will head the investigation, with help from Quebec City and Montreal police.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe allegations are serious and we have to shed light on this affair,\u201d said Crown spokesman, Jean-Pascal Boucher.<\/p>\n

Murphy said Francoeur hadn’t spoken with her office or the province’s anti-corruption unit since he dropped the bombshell accusations five days ago.<\/p>\n

Francoeur said he had contacted anti-corruption investigators and will meet with them.<\/p>\n

In a brief statement, Francoeur said he stood by what he said in the radio interview.<\/p>\n

Murphy said she hadn’t come across any file in her office related to Francoeur’s allegations.<\/p>\n

The government was also forced to address reports Tuesday that Francoeur had been approached in January to run for the Liberal party.<\/p>\n

Sylain Langis, the party’s chief organizer, vigorously denied anyone in a position to do so made an offer to Francoeur regarding the riding of Marguerite-Bourgeoys.<\/p>\n

Francoeur said he was approached by the party earlier this year and \u201con the spot, strongly and unequivocally rejected the offer of the Liberal Party of Quebec.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Montreal riding is currently held by former Liberal transport minister Robert Poeti, also a former police officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

QUEBEC \u2014 The Crown prosecutor’s office in Quebec called Tuesday for a criminal inquiry into corruption allegations made by the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":100763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,16],"tags":[18616,18617],"class_list":["post-100757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-quebec-liberal-party","tag-yves-francoeur","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}