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Dominique Ollivier was quick to defend her reputation, as the city’s auditor general presented a scathing assessment of the organization she once headed.
Serving as the president of the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) from 2014 to 2021, Ollivier was elected in the Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie borough and handpicked by Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante to be the chairperson of the city’s executive committee — the highest position of power for an elected councillor. However, Ollivier resigned last year amid questions of how she governed the OCPM.
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On Tuesday, the city’s auditor general published her annual report examining numerous dossiers, including the expense scandal at the OCPM. The report found a lack of rigour and control of expenses at the OCPM, which has existed as a paramunicipal organization for more than two decades.
Minutes before auditor general Andrée Cossette began her plenary session at city council, Ollivier emailed a three-page letter to all city councillors, saying the report wasn’t complete because Cossette failed to interview or even consult her or any of the former directors of the OCPM.
“I deplore the fact that in the face of all these questions that the auditor general’s office had, that instead of drawing to conclusions, it could have taken the time to ask for clarifications from those who had them,” Ollivier wrote in the letter, of which The Gazette obtained a copy. “I think that having heard from the administrators, it would have enriched their perspectives, the conclusions, the recommendations and the usefulness of this report.”
The lack of rigour on expenses was detailed in news reports last year, highlighting numerous trips and meals that were expensed with questionable motives. Among them was a $347 oyster dinner Ollivier claimed for the birthday of colleague and Ollivier’s eventual successor, Isabelle Beaulieu, while on a trip in Paris. Several other questionable expenses were highlighted, including $17,793 in restaurant bills Ollivier expensed between 2016 and 2019. Ollivier, secretary-general Guy Grenier, Beaulieu and Luc Doray, who was secretary-general before Grenier, also had their taxpayer-funded expenses analyzed and appeared to file for reimbursement of expenses while they were on personal trips.
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In her report Tuesday, Cossette found that because the OCPM was considered to be an independent body, it wasn’t overseen by city council. As a result, it didn’t have a policy governing its expenses. That resulted in administrators approving their own expenses.
However, Ollivier refuted that claim, saying the OCPM was created by city council, so it was up to the council to put in place a framework for claiming expenses, but this was never done.
“Does (Cossette) know that the OCPM has its own incorporation documents and could have at any time changed most of the elements cited in the report with the support of the city and that the city had the choice to ask for changes over the course of 20 years and never did so?”
Reacting to Ollivier’s letter, Cossette said she didn’t need to meet with Ollivier to complete her report.
“We obtained documents and then the answers we needed from the different stakeholders we met,” she wrote in a statement. “So, the documents necessary for our audit were at the OCPM, and it is based on these documents that we proceeded with our audit.”
Linda Gyulai of The Gazette contributed to this report.
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