Pauline Marois (centre) holds a news conference in a tent set up near her stately home in Ile Bizard last Thursday afternoon.
Marois denies allegations
BY ELYSE AMEND
elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca
Despite a fence and gate bearing a “private” sign running along the property on Cherrier Street in Ile Bizard, Parti québécois leader Pauline Marois maintains the government owned land in front of her and her husband Claude Blanchet’s 41-acre estate can be and is already used by the public.
“Do you see a house?” she asked reporters last Thursday, pointing at the six-acre tract of land at the estate’s entrance that the government expropriated from a previous owner in 1978 for the future Highway 440 extension. During a French-only question period, Marois told reporters there is a snowmobile trail that crosses the land. “We only cut and maintain the lawn for esthetic purposes.”
Marois invited media representatives to the estate to hear her response to a recent article in a Montreal daily that raised questions about how she and her husband obtained permission to build the house on land zoned for agricultural use. The article was printed on Sept. 22, two days before Marois ran in, and won, a byelection in the Charlevoix riding.
The news conference was held at the property’s entrance in a small tent, barely big enough to hold the media circus, and out of sight of the couple’s multi-million dollar home. The Gazette’s original article reported Blanchet gave Marcel Turcotte, a previous resident of the property, $1,600 after he signed an affidavit confirming the land was inhabited as of Nov. 8, 1978, the date Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec (CPTAQ) laws protecting agricultural land came into force. Marois insisted her husband only gave Turcotte $500, not as a bribe, but as a gift for all the trouble he went through to get the couple all the papers they needed.
“Think about it. Why would Claude pay for such a declaration?” Marois said, adding Blanchet, a wealthy businessman, did not appear at the press conference because she believed the Gazette article directly targeted her. “Leaders of the Parti québécois have always had problems with that newspaper.”
As for the government-owned land, on which a driveway accessing the Marois-Blanchet estate runs, the couple signed a five-year lease in 1994, and was paying $100 per year to the government. However, Blanchet terminated the lease in 1996, because the couple did not want to be held responsible for any snowmobile or all-
terrain vehicle accidents on the trail that runs across the land. Marois also said Blanchet obtained written permission to erect the stone fence and iron gate at the entrance, and have never been asked to remove it.
“You can enter from either side,” Marois said. “Our fence doesn’t stop anyone from accessing the property.”
Before being sped off from the news conference in a blue Toyota Rav4, Marois expressed her discontent with how she and her husband were “misrepresented” by the Gazette article, and apologized for not allowing any questions to be asked in English. Before the press conference, her assistant informed the media only questions in French would be allowed, due to the “complexity” of the situation.
“I’m very sorry about the situation. I know I should be more competent in English,” she said.
Marois and Blanchet have since filed a $2 million defamation suit against The Gazette. The newspaper, however, has said it will stand by the article and has denied allegations it was written to damage Marois’ byelection campaign.
by Elyse Amend 
Steven Guilbeault - 
