OCPM ditches secretary general position as it aims to rebuild public trust

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The Office de consultation publique de Montréal has abolished the position of secretary general and replaced it with an office manager as part of its rebuilding process following last fall’s expense scandal.

Philippe Bourke, who was appointed president of the municipal public consultation office by city council in June, said the secretary general was a made-up position. The problem was that aside from certain administrative tasks, including approving his own expenses and those of the OCPM president, the secretary general represented the OCPM abroad and made decisions about how to conduct the OCPM’s consultations.

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“There was a need to refocus the responsibilities of this position on administrative management responsibilities,” Bourke told The Gazette in an interview Monday. External representation and the organization of consultations “fall under the presidency,” he said.

Bourke, who was a manager at Hydro-Québec and a former head of the Bureau d’audiences publiques du Québec (BAPE), said he decided to adopt the same model as the city ombudsman’s office and the city manager’s office, both of which have an office manager to handle administrative and human resource tasks. The office manager also acts as a liaison with the administration at city hall to ensure the independence of the OCPM president.

In late July, the OCPM hired a Montreal civil servant, Marie-Andrée L’Espérance, with nearly 10 years of service as office manager. L’Espérance, who worked most recently as a division chief and urban planning counsellor for Outremont borough, is well-versed in the city’s administrative processes and governance rules, Bourke said.

The lengthy, arm’s-length selection process to fill the role of office manager was also a novelty for the OCPM.

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The city’s human resources department posted the position and fielded about 100 candidates, Bourke said. Some were selected for an interview and the final choice was made by a jury that included Bourke and members of the city human resource and finance departments.

“My message is that I am doing everything I can to ensure that the office regains the public’s trust and that people recognize how important an organization like the Office de consultation publique is,” he said.

“I believe in it and I think that people, when they understand what we do, will see that we do it well … and that it can be positive for the city’s development.”

City council initially appointed Bourke on an interim basis in December with a mandate to restore order after revelations that past and present OCPM managers expensed costly equipment, trips and dinners to the city for years. The revelations led council to fire then-president Isabelle Beaulieu and order an audit of the office.

One of Bourke’s first acts as interim president was to fire then-secretary general Guy Grenier.

As The Gazette had reported in December, Grenier, as secretary general since January 2023, had the use of three city-issued credit cards while also acting as the OCPM employee responsible for approving the charges on them and the charges on the president’s credit card. His predecessor had a city-issued credit card in his name, as did each president, along with a generic credit card for general use by the OCPM.

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Since December, the OCPM president’s expenses must be authorized by the city treasurer.

“So there is no more self-approval, nor cross-approval,” Bourke said.

The Quebec government also amended Montreal’s city charter to designate OCPM personnel as city employees, subject to the same spending and governance rules as all Montreal civil servants.

And now, the OCPM has two credit cards, neither of which is in anyone’s name, Bourke said.

“We asked ourselves if it was necessary (to have credit cards),” he said, however certain software requires online purchase with a credit card, he said. The credit cards may also be used to buy basic office supplies, he said.

The OCPM’s next task is to submit a plan to the city later this month that will detail how it will address the recommendations in the auditor general’s scathing report in June that found a lack of internal controls and management rules throughout the OCPM’s 20-year history.

lgyulai@postmedia.com

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