Deconstructing a tangled renovation

Deconstructing a tangled renovation - Canada - TheChronicleHerald.ca: "Montreal construction firm previously controlled by an alleged Hells Angels hit man won a $9-million renovation contract on Parliament Hill in spite of a series of warnings about the firm, including one from one of the architects managing the project, documents show.

Julia Gersovitz, an award-winning Montreal architect who has been overseeing the complex renovations of the crumbling parliamentary building since 1995, was 'aghast' that L.M. Sauve could pre-qualify and she warned that the company was 'one of the worst contractors they have dealt with.'

L.M. Sauve won the job after paying more than $100,000 to Tory lobbyist Gilles Varin, who set up a meeting between contractor Paul Sauve, head of L.M. Sauve, and Bernard Cote, a senior aide to Michael Fortier, the minister of public works at the time.

Sauve has testified that he believes Varin was greasing the wheels in Ottawa to help him win the contract: 'Because we paid, we received.'"

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