montreal inspector general stopped city from awarding contract without plans or specifications
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in a bid for greater transparency, montreal’s inspector general says he’s going to start disclosing the details of wonky contract tenders that he and his office’s investigators were able to have corrected before they led to the awarding of irregular contracts that needed to be suspended or cancelled.
“in the majority of cases, when i intervene with the city unit, if i’m really rapid in my intervention, the call for tenders can be modified and i have no report to table (in city council),” inspector general françois lanthier said in an interview on monday after his office presented its mid-year report to city council.
the inspector general’s office, known by its french acronym big (bureau de l’inspecteur général), was created in 2014 to catch wrongdoing and ensure the integrity of montreal’s contract-awarding process.
the big normally files a public report in council only when the case provides grounds to cancel or suspend the contract, lanthier said.
“i found it created a problem because i had less opportunity to talk about my preventive interventions because i didn’t table a report,” he said.
“if i don’t table a report, then no one hears about us. it’s like i wasn’t working.”
in fact, the big issued no public reports in 2024 and has issued none so far in 2025. yet the office’s 2024 annual report indicates it received 218 tips or allegations and opened 100 cases last year.
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lanthier said he will use the big’s mid-year report, tabled in council every september, to offer examples of upstream interventions by his office that prevented contracts with irregularities as a means to educate the public and other city departments. he added that he’ll also follow up on past years’ preventive recommendations to ensure the measures have been implemented.
“i’m trying to give myself a tool to be more transparent,” lanthier said, adding that some errors are too minor to be worth detailing.
“i’ll do it each time there is a public interest to do it.”
to that end, the big’s mid-year report to council on monday lists several cases where lanthier’s team intervened before it was too late.
the examples include the contract for the city’s first modular homes offering transitional shelter for unhoused people. the project, announced last winter, was delayed for months without explanation.
outgoing mayor valérie plante inaugurated the first modular housing complex for 30 residents at the old hippodrome site in côte-des-neiges—notre-dame-de-grâce borough on monday.
the big had to step in because the call for tenders contained no plans and specifications — so no description of the work to be done by the winning firm, lanthier said.
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“it only called for the entrepreneur to offer a price and that’s it,” he said.
“we said (to the city), ‘what is it you want to do? what’s the contract?’ their explanation was ‘we’re in an emergency situation. we used a bill of quantities used for an emergency situation.’ we said it’s not an emergency like a roof is leaking.”
the city corrected the call for tenders by producing specifications, lanthier added.
“it’s (done) in emergency cases,” he said of the absence of plans and specifications. “but that wasn’t an emergency.”
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