Research Paper Number

39/2015

Subsequently published in the Osgoode Hall Law Journal .

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2015

Keywords

Systemic corruption, institutional change, culturalism, Quiet Revolution, new institutional economics, functionalism, social partnership, varieties of capitalism, embeddedness, economic nationalism

Abstract

The Quiet Revolution in the 1960s propelled the province of Québec onto the path of greater social justice and better government. But as the evidence exposed at the Charbonneau inquiry makes clear, this did not make systemic corruption disappear from the construction sector. Rather, it adapted to its new institutional environment and was significantly shaped by the incentives structure it provided. The patterns of corruption emerging from the Charbonneau inquiry bear the imprint of the so-called “Québec model” inherited from the Quiet Revolution in at least three ways: (i) in the economic nationalism that made public policies partial towards French-speaking and Québec-based businesses, notably in the engineering sector, with major firms like SNC-Lavalin using their dominant position as “national champions” to engage in cartel-like practices to raise the price of construction projects; (ii) in the Jacobinism that strongly centralized power at the provincial level and left municipalities underdeveloped in terms of bureaucratic capacity, thus making them easy prey for corrupted interests, and (iii) in the sovereignist/federalist cleavage that, since the 1970s, has made Québec businesses dependent on the Liberal Party for political stability and has allowed party operators to extract a rent from businesses in return.

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