Still cleaning to do at the Caisse, judges an expert

The Caisse de depot et placement should not have tolerated that a vice-president of its subsidiary Otéra Capital has financial interests in a shopping center, believes a specialist in governance in reaction to the revelations of our Bureau of investigation.

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“They haven’t finished cleaning up Otéra,” said Professor Luc Bernier, holder of the Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management at the University of Ottawa.

According to him, Mr. Chin should be considered a civil servant when it comes to managing conflicts of interest, “because being employed at the Caisse de dépôt is [travailler pour] the Government of Quebec”.

Our Bureau of Investigation revealed yesterday that Ontarian Paul Chin had a personal interest in the Center Lachenaie in Terrebonne while his employer granted mortgages totaling nearly $21 million to this real estate complex.

Accumulation of roles

“It’s not so much Mr. Chin in particular that worries me as this culture, at Otéra, where, obviously, it’s absolutely normal to fish on both sides of the boat. That bothers me,” continues Mr. Bernier.

In his eyes, the accumulation of a job at the Caisse and personal investments in a related field of activity (real estate in the case of Paul Chin) constitutes a “mixture of genres which poses a problem”.

Mr. Chin is still employed by Otéra today, having been unaffected by the wave of dismissals carried out at the beginning of 2019 in the wake of a vast scandal that we had brought to light within the subsidiary of the Caisse.

He holds the position of Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer of Otéra.

“They have to go down the list of employees at Otéra and finish the cleaning,” said Mr. Bernier.

Did he know?

The Caisse again refused yesterday to say whether its CEO, Charles Émond, was aware of the conflict of interest affecting Paul Chin.

Mr. Émond, who joined the Caisse in February 2019, declined the request for an interview with the Logyesterday.

He succeeded Michael Sabia as the institution’s big boss in February 2020.

Last month, the auditor general, Guylaine Leclerc, maintained in a report that in several investment files, the Caisse did not respect several of its rules in terms of verification and declaration of conflicts of interest.