Tough Times for Quebec's Mobsters

How fitting that Quebec’s Charbonneau Commission — officially known as the Commission of Inquiry on the Awarding and Management of Public Contracts in the Construction Industry — is nicely under-budget as it cruises into its last few months of active existence. “Documents obtained through an access to information request reveal that as of July 16, 2014, the high-profile inquiry, which started in 2011, had spent a grand total of $32.62-million,” Montreal’s Gazette newspaper reported over the weekend. “The provincial government had initially set aside $14.6-million per year for the commission to complete its work, meaning that if Justice France Charbonneau had been using every penny at her disposal, the total as of July 16 would have been just over $40-million.”