Thirty-five years ago, a rampage by construction workers at Robert Bourassa’s massive $13-billion “project of the century,” the James Bay hydroelectric development, sparked a public inquiry into Quebec’s construction industry.

Bourassa, then in his second term as premier, had an overwhelming 102-seat majority in the 110-seat Quebec legislature. He did not feel threatened by the six-member Parti Québécois caucus. In naming Judge Robert Cliche to look into construction union violence, perhaps Bourassa hoped for political gains, turning public opinion against unions linked to organized crime.

Bourassa then mandated two more inquiries, probing organized crime and Olympic cost overruns. But it turned out that the ground covered by the three commissions overlapped. Organized crime was involved in construction. Criminal elements and corrupt union officials together cashed in on the race to complete the Olympic facilities on time. Despite all this, Bourassa called another election in 1976. But his Bill 22, making French Quebec’s official language while imposing language tests on children for entry into English schools, angered everyone.

And the wave of revelations about corruption and cash payments that arose out of the commissions ended up fatally tarnishing Bourassa’s once supreme Liberals, allowing PQ leader René Lévesque to come to power on a mandate for “good government.”

Now, in a strange echo of the past, question period in the Quebec National Assembly this fall has been dominated by tales of corruption in the construction industry, as well as of possible collusion in bid rigging in Premier Jean Charest’s five-year, $50-billion infrastructure program. The biggest names in organized crime, such as the Mafia and the Hells Angels, have been bandied about.

There are allegations that Tony Accurso, president of Simard-Beaudry Construction Inc., offers hospitality on his luxury yacht —the Touch, available for US$60,000 a week — to influence politicians. Accurso is charged with nothing, but Quebec politicians are now falling over each other in denying they were ever aboard the Touch.

There are also allegations that contractors have padded contracts, to the tune of 20%-35% over their true costs. On a $50-billion infrastructure program, that means between $10 billion and $17.5 billion could be going astray.

Quebec’s Opposition parties now want a public inquiry into construction corruption; but Charest is aware of what happened to Bourassa. And, more recently, Charest remembers former prime minister Paul Martin, who lost power to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in 2006: sponsorship excesses revealed by the Gomery Commission, mandated by Martin, ended up smearing the Martin government’s reputation.

In self-defense, Charest touts Quebec’s massive infrastructure spending as the reason the province has suffered less in the recession than other provinces. But already the PQ opposition has suggested a link between Charest’s enthusiasm for building and a 2000 trip to Mexico that Charest and his family took, paid for by the Canadian Construction Association.

Instead of a full inquiry, Charest has set up Operation Hammer, a police operation to look into the construction industry, and has vowed to tighten controls to prevent bid rigging.

But this probe is a big gamble. As unlikely as it may have seemed only last spring, Charest may find himself foundering in political rapids he never saw coming. IE