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Contrecoeur: Project was a rush, city lawyer says, and order came from Zampino
A lawyer working for the city of Montreal testified on Wednesday he was told there was a rush for the city to approve the land transaction that’s at the heart of the Contrecoeur fraud trial. The...
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Contrecoeur: City legal department kept out of the loop on real-estate...
The city of Montreal’s legal department learned “by accident” in 2006 that the administration of former Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay had gone behind its back to privatize the city’s real-estate...
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Flood watch: Coderre declares a state of emergency for island of Montreal
Related 'This is a very exceptional flooding season,' Quebec hydrologist admitsImportant coordinates and info for residents of flooded areasMore of our flood coveragePhotos: Quebec flooding For the...
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Flood Watch: 'We have reached the peak,' but river along Montreal will remain...
Quebec’s once-in-a-century flood appeared to reach its worst on Sunday, but it will be many days before the cresting river levels subside, Quebec’s civil protection agency says. The prognosis for the...
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Contrecoeur: Frank Zampino's lawyers make new bid to halt fraud trial
Defence lawyers for Frank Zampino, the former No. 2 politician at Montreal city hall, have filed a new motion to halt the proceedings against him in the Contrecoeur fraud trial. The motion, discussed...
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Flooding cancels consultation on Pierrefonds-Ouest development project
A public consultation the city had scheduled this week on a 5,500-unit residential development proposed for one of the island’s last large natural habitats in western Pierrefonds has been flooded out....
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Former SHDM assistant says he wasn't pressured to pick winning firm
The second in charge of the municipal agency that sold city-owned land known as Faubourg Contrecoeur to a construction firm for a fraction of its municipal assessment says he was subjected to...
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Contrecoeur: Sudden spike in decontamination cost was a 'surprise,' witness says
An architect who worked for the municipal real-estate agency that put the Faubourg Contrecoeur land out for bids testified on Thursday at the fraud trial connected to that project about being surprised...
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Quebec flooding: Work begins to restore buildings and lives
After the disaster comes the cleanup. Quebecers in flood-stricken areas will be waking up on Monday to a province that has begun the transition from crisis mode to recovery. But as river levels in the...
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Crown has one month left to make case against Contrecoeur accused
When the Contrecoeur fraud trial, which has occupied room 3.05 of the Montreal courthouse for the past 15 months, resumes on Tuesday, it will have just one month left on its “lease” to produce the...
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Contrecoeur trial to be extended, hears from witness that Catania gave...
Entrepreneur Paolo Catania used to send bottles of wine to politicians in at least a dozen municipalities during the December holidays, and the task fell to Serge Marsolais, an employee of Catania’s...
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Contrecoeur project was 'very political,' witness tells trial
The city of Montreal delegated a paramunicipal agency rather than its own real-estate department to find a buyer for the vacant city-owned Faubourg Contrecoeur site, and the agency outsourced every bit...
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Contrecoeur witness acknowledges 'blind trust' in agency head
The board of directors of the municipal real-estate agency that sold the city-owned Faubourg Contrecoeur land to a developer at a heavily discounted price wasn’t a rubber stamp for its rule-breaking...
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Bylaw written for Contrecoeur project made city pay infrastructure work
The city of Montreal wrote a made-to-measure bylaw for the Faubourg Contrecoeur project that made its developer eligible for public financing for infrastructure work on the 38-hectare site, the fraud...
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City auditor got job offer a month before releasing report on Contrecoeur sale
A month before Montreal auditor general Michel Doyon released his report on irregularities in the city’s sale of the Faubourg Contrecoeur land to a private developer in March 2009, he received a phone...
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Contrecoeur land was worth over $20 million, former Montreal civil servant says
Montreal civil servants who were real-estate experts estimated the Faubourg Contrecoeur land that the city intended to sell for development in 2006 would fetch over $20 million, a former civil servant...
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Catania firm didn't provide complete bills for publicly-financed decontamination
After Guy Hébert took over as head of the beleaguered Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM) in 2008 following irregularities in its sale of the city-owned Faubourg Contrecoeur...
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Crown to call its final witness on Tuesday at Contrecoeur fraud trial
The Crown is to call its final witness on Tuesday at the Contrecoeur fraud trial of Frank Zampino, the former No. 2 politician at Montreal city hall, and five other people. The last person on the...
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Testimony of final Crown witness at Contrecoeur trial stalled
The testimony of the Crown’s final witness in the Contrecoeur fraud trial was postponed on Tuesday after the defence challenged the person’s qualification as an expert witness. Jacques Victor, who...
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Bidding process for Contrecoeur land deal wasn't transparent, fraud trial hears
The call for bids to award the Contrecoeur municipal land deal to a developer lacked transparency, violated the principals of equality and confidentiality that are essential to a public bidding process...
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