France Charbonneau

France Charbonneau is a Canadian judge sitting on the Quebec Superior Court. She was appointed on 4 October 2004.

Crown Attorney Charbonneau began her legal career in the 1970s as a legal secretary and complained that many of the grand seigneur lawyers whom she worked treated her a patronizing sexist manner, which inspired her to go into law school to study the law herself. Charbonneau served as a Crown attorney in Quebec for 26 years, beginning in 1979, and worked at as a legal aid lawyer. As a Crown Attorney, Charbonneau tried over 80 murder cases, including that of Maurice Boucher, and served as a prosecutor on Operation Carcajou. Charbonneau headed the inquiry—now known as the Charbonneau Commission—from 2011 to 2015. The Cliche inquiry looked into the corruption surrounding the notoriously corrupt union boss, the Mafia-linked André Desjardins, known as le roi de la construction ("the King Of Construction").

The commission started its hearings on 22 May 2012. On 15 June 2012, the former Montreal police chief Jacques Duchesneau testified at the commission that the Transport Minister Sam Hamel was indifferent to allegations of corruption in the construction industry and that 70% of all political contributions in Quebec were illegal. The next witness Charbonneau called was the Italian Mafia expert Valentina Tenti who testified that the Rizzuto family of Montreal was part of a wider international structure involving criminal elements in Italy, the United States and elsewhere. The next expert witness called to the commission was Detective Mike Amato of the York Regional Police who testified that the Mafia had taken control of a number of restaurants, transportation firms, and construction companies in both Ontario and Quebec. Charbonneau summoned as her next witness the former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Joseph D. Pistone, better known by his alias Donnie Brasco, who testified that the Mafia needed corrupt public officials to do its work. Pistone testified that the power of the Rizzuto family was only made possible by the culture of corruption in Quebec. Under his Brasco alias, Pistone had infiltrated the Bonanno family of New York between 1976 and 1981. The Rizzuto family of Montreal is merely the Canadian branch of the Bonanno family. Pistone never met Vito Rizzuto, the boss of the Rizzuto family, in his undercover work in New York, but he heard much about him.

On 27 September 2012, Lino Zambito, the former boss of the construction company Infrabec, testified that he had to pay kickbacks to win construction contracts in Montreal. Zambito stated that 2.5% of his profits had to go to the Rizzuto family, 3% to the governing Union Montreal party, and 1% to Gilles Surprenant, the chief engineer of Montreal. Zambito testified that in his invoices to the city of Montreal he billed for the wages of union workers while in fact employing illegal immigrants who were paid below the minimum wage for their work to order to pocket the difference. On 1 October 2012, Zambito testified that when the city opened up a bidding process to build the l'Acadie interchange, he received a phone call from his rival Tony Accurso, the owner of the Simard-Beaudry Construction company, who told him that he was to have the contract and wanted Zambito to drop out. Zambtio testified to resolve the dispute that he went to see Vito Rizzuto who told him that Accurso would have the contract. Zambito named the city employees Yves Themens, François Thériault, and Michel Paquette as being corrupt. Zambito further stated that city manager, Robert Abdallah and the chairman of the executive committee, Frank Zampino, were also corrupt. On 15 October 2012, Zambito testified that both the Parti libéral du Québec and the Parti Québécois had accepted illegal donations from himself in exchange for tolerating his corruption.

Charbonneau called as a witness Surprenant who confirmed Zambito's testimony. Surprenant testified that as the chief engineer of Montreal that he had taken $700, 000 in bribes. Surprenant argued that his corruption was justified as he spent much of his bribe money on gambling, which he stated created jobs in the gambling industry. Surprenant testified that construction companies routinely overbilled the city between 20%-50% in excess of the actual work done, and stated that there was nothing wrong with this as corruption in Montreal was an "open secret" that everyone knew about.

Charbonneau's next witness, Martin Dumont, a former official in the Union Montreal party testified that his former boss, Bernard Trépanier, the chief financial officer of the Union Montreal, had taken so many bribes that his office safe was overflowing with cash. Dumont testified that he and Trépanier had much difficulty in forcing all of the cash into his safe. Another city official, Luc Leclerc, testified to the commission on 31 October 2012 that he had taken $500, 000 in bribes in cash between 1995 and 2009 along with various bribes in the form of gifts that were equal in value to the cash. Leclerc testified that he done nothing wrong because corruption was the norm in Montreal and that "when in Rome, do as the Romans". On 9 November 2012, the mayor of Laval, Gilles Vaillancourt, resigned in disgrace as a number of the commission's witnesses had named him as corrupt. On 15 November 2012, the mayor of Montreal, Gérald Tremblay, resigned in disgrace as too many of the witnesses at the commission had implicated him in their corruption.

Gilles Vézina, the former chief engineer of Montreal, was called by Charbonneau as her next witness. Vézina admitted that he had taken bribes such in the form of bottles of wine, dinners at expensive restaurants, tickets to see the Montreal Canadiens hockey team play at the Molson center and the services of prostitutes hired by the construction companies. Like the other witnesses, Vézina denied having done anything wrong as he told Charbonneau that corruption had been the norm in Montreal ever since he started working for the city in 1962. Charbonneau called as a witness Martin Carrier, the owner of Les Céramiques Lindo ceramic firm based in Quebec City. Carrier testified that he had warned by the Rizzuto family not to do any more work in Montreal. In support of his claims, Carrier played an audio tape of a phone call he received in 2004 from a man speaking French with an Italian accent who told him to cease work in Montreal because otherwise "...you won't be walking away from here. You've been warned". Carrier also testified that he received further death threats from a Rizzuto family member, Francesco Del Balso, after he made a bid on a contract in Montreal. Charbonneau thanked Carrier for his "exceptional courage" in coming forward despite all of the death threats against himself and his family.

Charbonneau's next witness was Michel Leclerc, the owner of the construction company Terremex. Leclerc testified that he tried to avoid paying kickbacks to the corrupt city officials and the Rizzuto family, but was finally forced to because it was the only way to win contracts in Montreal. André Durocher, the owner of the Excavatins Panthère company, likewise testified that he was forced to pay kickbacks as the price of doing business in Montreal. Michel Cadotte, the owner of the Ipex pipe-manufacturing company testified that the city cancelled its contract to buy his Terra-Brute pipes after he refused to pay a $150, 000 bribe.

Charbonneau started January 2013 by calling as a witness, Michel Lalonde, the owner of Génius Counseil, who testified that he overbilled the city by 25%-30% in his construction work and donated the money to the politicians. In 2001 election, Lalonde had donated to the ruling mayor, Pierre Bourque, who lost the election to Tremblay. Lalonde testified that for the next two years it was impossible for Génius Counseil to win contracts until in 2003 he received a phone call from Trépanier who asked him to give $100, 000 in cash to Tremblay. After paying the $100, 000, Lalonde testified that he sat down with Trépanier who asked him what construction project he would like Génius Counseil to work on. Lalonde also testified that to win a contract in 2007 to build Autoroute 13 for the province of Quebec that he had paid $25, 000 in cash to Claude Millaire, the Transport Quebec official on charge of awarding the contract. Lalonde named as the politicians whom he paid bribes to as Joseph Magri, the former mayor of Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles; Cosmo Maciocia, another former mayor of Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles; Gilles Deguire, the mayor of Montréal-Nord; Robert Coutu, the mayor of Montréal-Est; Michel Bissonnet, the mayor of Saint-Leonard; and Jean-François St-Onge, a borough councilor in Ahuntsic-Cartierville. The municipalities listed by Lalonde were all known strongholds of the Rizzuto family.

The next witness Charbonneau called was Giuseppe Borsellino, the owner of Garnier Construction, who likewise testified that he paid bribes to win contracts, saying that it was the only way possible to win a contract from the corrupt city officials. Borsellino testified that he had paid $50, 000 to give a free vacation in Italy to Robert Marcil, the chief of Montreal's Public Works department, as the price of winning a contract. Charbonneau questioned Borsellino about an incident in 2009 when three men broke into his office and beat him bloody. Borsellino said he had no idea why he was beaten. Charbonneau was displeased with this answer and told him: "If you were beaten to the point that you were disfigured and had to be hospitalized for a reconstruction of your face, you must have some idea why you were beaten like that?" Borsellino answered her: "I have some ideas. Maybe I didn't pay my debts. Maybe I didn't do a job well. It was maybe two or three reasons. I did not make a complaint and I went on to my business and went back to work". When Charbonneau suggested that it was Rizzuto family thugs who had beaten him in his office, Borsellino admitted that he was a friend of Rizzuto family as he came from the same town in Sicily as they did, but denied that it was the Rizzuto family who had him beaten.

Charbonneau had the commission played by a secret video recording made by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police where a construction company boss, Nicolo Milioto, arrived at the Consenza Social Club and handed a bag of cash to Nicolo Rizzuto. After counting the money, Rizzuto handed some of the cash back to Milioto, which he hid in his socks. Milioto visited Rizzuto at the Consenza Social Club 236 times between 2004 and 2006. Charbonneau had Milioto called as a witness. Milioto, known in Montreal as "Mr. Sidewalk", was accused of collecting kickbacks and extortion payments from the construction companies, which he handed over personally to Rizzuto. Milioto spoke with much fear in his voice as he denied that doing anything illegal as he claimed that he routinely performed "errands" for Rizzuto for which he was paid hundreds of dollars per errand. Milioto denied knowing what the Mafia was as he claimed "I don't know" when asked if he knew what the Mafia was. When Charbonneau asked Milioto if he was aware of pizzo (protection money), Miloto stated: "I come from Italy, Madame, I know what a pizzo is". Langton wrote: "As revealing as the Charbonneau Commission was, I'm not sure it actually accomplished that much work". Langton wrote that the root problem in the Quebec construction industry was not the Rizzuto family nor the Hells Angels, but rather the climate of corruption which allowed these criminal syndicates to flourish, which the Charbonneau commission failed to address.

In popular culture Charbonneau was portrayed by Claudia Ferri in the television drama series Bad Blood, which debuted in 2017, surrounding the Rizzuto crime family.

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