Well, yet another mayor pledging to clean up corruption in his city has been arrested — on 14 counts of corruption. This time it’s Mayor Michael Applebaum, the mayor of Montreal, a city of approximately 1.65 million in Canada’s Quebec province.
According to an O.Canada.com article headlined Development projects at centre of charges against Montreal mayor, “The charges, 14 of which are levelled against Applebaum, who was mayor of the borough [Montreal’s Cote-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grace borough] from 2002 to 2012, relate to what officials with Quebec’s anti-corruption squad called ‘tens of thousands of dollars’ in bribes in exchange for municipal support and approval for the two real-estate projects between 2006 and 2011.”
Applebaum and a couple of other suspects were arrested by the Quebec Provincial Police, known there as the Sûreté du Québec or SQ, and the Unité Permanente Anticorruption or UPAC, Quebec’s special anti-corruption squad. A Globe and Mail online article headlined Behind the bribery allegations that have enveloped Montreal’s mayor provides more details about the charges.
ADDENDUM on June 18, 2013, at 3 p.m.: Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum resigned today. Interesting paragraph from the Reuters article:
His departure will do little to help the reputation of Quebec, where a two-year public inquiry led by Judge France Charbonneau is unearthing almost daily allegations of contract rigging, kickbacks and fraud going back many years.
That is a very succinct and well-stated reason for pursuing public corruption rather than choosing to ignore it.
ADDENDUM on June 19, 2013, at 8:15 a.m.: Here is a pretty good primer on how to bribe public officials with what appear to be legitimate campaign donations. Here is another one.