Mâchurer: The Closed File and the Unfinished Story

Can a police investigation be lawfully closed while leaving a democratic story unfinished? On February 28, 2022, Quebec’s anti-corruption police, the Unité permanente anticorruption (UPAC), ended Project Mâchurer. Opened in April 2014, the investigation sought to determine whether criminal offences had been committed in connection with Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) financing—particularly so-called “sector-based” financing—between 2001 and 2012. More than 300 witnesses had been interviewed. No charges were laid. Those facts do not permit anyone to declare the people targeted by the investigation guilty. Allegations in police documents were never tested at trial, and the absence of charges must be respected. But it does not follow that eight years of police work became a file for which public institutions have nothing left to explain. Public documents tell us **who** decided to close Mâchurer. They do not disclose the specific legal reasons for the decision. They also document at least $447,182 in recorded expenditures without establishing the investigation’s full cost. That is the real unfinished story: not a trial to be recreated in the media, but an incomplete accounting to the public. ## An investigation born from a question larger than political donations UPAC’s [closure announcement](https://upac.gouv.qc.ca/actualites?cHash=47886f485bbc07ad02013b47dd31dc96&tx_news_pi1%5Baction%5D=detail&tx_news_pi1%5Bcontroller%5D=News&tx_news_pi1%5Bnews%5D=578) describes Mâchurer’s purpose in restrained terms: to determine whether criminal offences had been committed in connection with PLQ financing activities between 2001 and 2012. In public debate, “sector-based financing” refers to an alleged arrangement in which people connected to the same company or industry make individual donations to a political party, sometimes under fundraising targets and, in illegal cases, with reimbursement by their employer. Quebec law nevertheless reserved political contributions for electors and prohibited the use of straw donors. Statements collected by investigators were summarized in affidavits used to obtain judicial authorizations. After the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear an appeal by businessman and Liberal fundraiser Marc Bibeau, parts of those documents became public in January 2020. They contained accounts from company executives concerning fundraising targets, employee donations and, in some cases, alleged reimbursement by their companies. Those documents must be given their proper weight. An affidavit supporting a warrant sets out the grounds on which police seek an investigative power. It is neither a verdict nor evidence accepted after cross-examination. [The report published when the documents were disclosed](https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2020/01/16/des-temoignages-troublants-sur-lex-argentier-de-jean-charest-1) made the same point: the alleged facts supporting the warrants had not been proven in court. Jean Charest, Marc Bibeau and the other people publicly linked to Mâchurer were not charged with any offence in the case. Mr. Charest also denied participating in any form of illegal political financing. ## Eight years in a few dates The public timeline remains fragmented, but its main milestones can be verified. - **April 2014:** UPAC opens Mâchurer. - **2014 to 2016:** Investigators interview witnesses and use various investigative techniques. Judicial authorizations target, among other places, premises connected to Marc Bibeau’s companies. Some documents are sealed because of solicitor-client privilege issues. - **April 24, 2017:** Media outlets publish information from the police file, including profiles, an investigative chart and information showing that Jean Charest and Marc Bibeau had been under surveillance. Mr. Charest’s role in the chart is not clearly defined. - **April 25, 2017:** UPAC launches an internal administrative investigation to identify the source of the leaks. - **February 14, 2018:** UPAC legally becomes a specialized police force. The reform is intended in part to strengthen its autonomy and control over investigations. - **Fall 2019:** The new commissioner, Frédérick Gaudreau, asks the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP), Quebec’s prosecution service, for an opinion on the evidence gathered. - **April 2020:** According to the publicly reported timeline, the DPCP forms a five-member review committee. - **December 2020:** The committee submits a first opinion. Further exchanges and a second request follow in 2021. - **December 2021:** The committee provides its additional analysis to UPAC. - **January 2022:** Frédérick Gaudreau decides to end the investigation. - **February 28, 2022:** The decision is announced publicly. - **April 2023:** Quebec Superior Court orders the government to pay Jean Charest $385,000 for the invasion of privacy caused by the leaks. The government does not appeal. - **April 2024:** A further claim by Mr. Charest for abuse of process is dismissed; the court finds that the Attorney General did not act abusively in conducting the civil litigation. This sequence shows why the raw duration of eight years does not tell the whole story. The investigation was slowed by litigation over access to documents potentially protected by solicitor-client privilege. It also continued through a major internal crisis at UPAC, changes in leadership and the institutional transformation of the police force. Those difficulties may explain part of the delay. On their own, they do not tell us which factors ultimately made a prosecution impracticable or unwarranted. ## Who actually closed Mâchurer? The official answer is more precise than political debate sometimes suggests. At the UPAC commissioner’s request, the DPCP formed a committee consisting of two prosecutors from its major crime and special affairs bureau, two regional prosecutors and former Quebec Court of Appeal judge André Rochon. According to the [DPCP statement](https://www.newswire.ca/fr/news-releases/annonce-de-l-upac-quant-a-la-fin-de-l-enquete-machurer-802244036.html), the committee reviewed the evidence, judicial decisions and applicable legal principles. But the DPCP emphasized an essential distinction: this was a **legal opinion given during an investigation**. The decision whether to continue or close the investigation, and whether to submit a request to initiate proceedings, remained the police force’s prerogative. It was therefore Frédérick Gaudreau, as Anti-Corruption Commissioner, who closed Mâchurer. The opinion remains confidential because it is protected by solicitor-client privilege. It is therefore impossible to say that the committee “cleared” the people concerned, found a total absence of evidence or identified a specific failure by UPAC. None of those conclusions was made public. The DPCP’s [current directives](https://www.quebec.ca/gouvernement/ministeres-organismes/directeur-poursuites-criminelles-penales/directives-instructions) nevertheless explain the general framework. To authorize a prosecution, a prosecutor must find a reasonable prospect of conviction based on admissible and sufficient evidence, then consider the public interest. Delay, witness reliability, the legality of investigative methods and the admissibility of collected material may all matter. That framework identifies the possible questions; it does not reveal the answers reached in Mâchurer. ## The leaks: a judicially established fact, but a separate matter The 2017 leaks prove nothing about the political-financing allegations. They instead demonstrate an institutional failure to protect an investigative file. In Charest v. Procureur général du Québec, 2023 QCCS 1050, Quebec Superior Court concluded that personal information originating from UPAC had been disclosed unlawfully. The judgment describes repeated disclosures and awarded Jean Charest $35,000 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages. The government did not appeal the decision. That judgment does not mean the Mâchurer investigation was unfounded. Conversely, the existence of a legitimate investigation did not authorize the disclosure of information about a person who had not been charged. The two issues must remain separate: one concerns the sufficiency of criminal evidence; the other concerns the conduct of the organization that held it. The court therefore confirmed a concrete wrong suffered by Jean Charest without deciding the financing allegations that prompted the investigation. ## A recorded public cost of $447,182 — but not the total cost Two UPAC responses to access-to-information requests provide the best public figures available. For fiscal years 2014-15 through 2018-19, the organization reported $400,642 in recorded remuneration and $13,885 in operating expenses, for a total of **$414,527**. For 2019-20 through February 28, 2022, it reported a further **$32,655**, including $32,479 in remuneration and $176 in operating expenses. The documented total is therefore **$447,182**. It would nevertheless be misleading to present that sum as “the cost of Mâchurer.” In its [March 31, 2022 response](https://upac.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/contenu/Diffusion_de_l_information/Acces_a_l_information/2022-03-31_DIFFUSION_Decision_800-02-158.pdf), UPAC explained that regular working time is never tracked by individual investigation. It therefore holds no record from which that portion of the cost could be calculated. It also stated that the salaries of Crown prosecutors assigned to the project fall under the DPCP. The public amounts likewise do not isolate the full contribution of partner organizations, management time, related court costs or expenditures arising from the later civil proceedings. The $447,182 figure should therefore be described as a **recorded minimum**, not a final bill. The most revealing angle is not that the investigation cost a spectacular amount. It is that, after eight years, the state does not maintain project-level accounting capable of establishing its full cost. ## “Lost opportunities” that cannot be quantified It is tempting to measure Mâchurer by what never happened: no charges, no trial and no verdict. But none of the public sources reviewed for this article establishes that UPAC lost or destroyed decisive evidence in this investigation. Time can weaken a complex case: memories become less precise, witnesses less available, admissibility disputes more difficult and document collections more unwieldy. These are general risks recognized in criminal law. Without the confidential legal opinion or a detailed closure report, however, it would be speculative to claim that any one of them determined Mâchurer’s outcome. The real lost opportunity is instead public. No accessible review separates what, over those eight years, arose from the unavoidable complexity of the investigation, legitimate court challenges, questionable management decisions or irreversible weaknesses in the evidence. ## Political financing has changed profoundly Mâchurer examined a period governed by political-financing rules that are no longer today’s rules. Between 2011 and 2013, the National Assembly adopted reforms intended in part to reduce the influence of money and counter straw-donor schemes. The [legislation enacted in 2012](https://www.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/Fichiers_client/lois_et_reglements/LoisAnnuelles/fr/2012/2012C26F.PDF) reduced the maximum annual contribution to a political entity from $1,000 to $100 while substantially increasing public financing. An additional $100 contribution is permitted during a general election or by-election. [Élections Québec’s review of 2013 to 2023](https://www.electionsquebec.qc.ca/communiques/moins-de-dons-plus-de-fonds-publics-portrait-du-financement-politique-de-2013-a-2023/) shows the scale of the shift. Before 2013, public financing represented an average of 27% of parties’ annual revenue in non-election years; since the reform, the average has been 77%. In election years, it rose from 49% to 83%. In dollar terms, public financing paid to parties in an election year increased from $13.9 million in 2008 to $30.3 million in 2022. The historical risk associated with large private fundraising targets has therefore been reduced. It has not disappeared in every form: parties must still raise contributions, organize events and protect their financing from straw-donor schemes. Donor transparency, Élections Québec audits and effective enforcement remain essential. Quebec’s anti-corruption system has also changed. Since 2018, the commissioner has led a specialized police force. Beginning in 2021, the organization started hiring its own permanent police investigators; it had historically relied on officers seconded from other forces. An oversight committee can review the administration of investigations and report to the National Assembly. Those reforms address several structural weaknesses revealed over the decade. They do not, by themselves, amount to a public review of Mâchurer. ## What can be concluded — and what cannot Mâchurer did not end with a publicly reasoned refusal to approve charges. It ended with a police decision made after a confidential legal opinion. There are sound reasons to protect solicitor-client privilege, personal information, investigative techniques and the reputations of people who were never charged. A democracy must also avoid publishing a raw police file that turns suspicion into a media conviction. But there is room for accountability between total silence and publication of the entire evidentiary record. A depersonalized report could explain the investigation’s duration, broad categories of obstacles, administrative practices that were corrected, the minimum cost and its limits, and internal recommendations implemented since then. UPAC’s oversight committee could likewise examine management lessons without making findings about anyone’s guilt. The closure of Mâchurer proves neither a conspiracy to protect the PLQ nor the absence of all problematic conduct during the period under review. It means something narrower: after its investigation and legal consultation, UPAC decided that there was no reason to continue its work. Four years after the closure, the democratic question remains: **How can the public demand accountability for an investigation that did not produce a trial without turning that accountability into a public trial of people it never charged?** That is where Mâchurer’s unfinished story lies.