Quebec's Liquor Police blazed an impressive trail of fraud, theft and corruption before it was disbanded in 1961 in a scandal that ended up with several toppermost officials being sent to the slammer.
Quebec was the only place in the Can-Am to resist Prohibition in 1919 but they agreed to limit booze to just beer, wine and cider.
Two years later Quebec eliminated that restriction, making us a unique booze central for all thirsty folks north and south of the border.
The province set up a liquor board to administer alcohol, along with a separate police squad of 35 officers to enforce the rules.
The newly-formed independent booze squad was filled with WWI vets and former provincial police officers. It had a military structure but the rules of their training were pretty loose under World War I war hero Edmond de Bellefeuille Panet, its first chief.
Bootlegging was a pretty big job to police, so the force expanded to 171 men by 1934.
Duplessis came to power in 1936 and reorganized all of Quebec's cops into four branches: highway cops, judicial police, gendarmierie and the liquor police.
Part of that reorganization involved lowering the pay of the five commissioners from $14,000 a year to $1 annually, a proposal that didn't go over too well with some, of course.
Three years later the Liberals took over and removed the liquor police from the rest of that organization, so the QLC became a separate force in 1940.
Liquor police officers were not necessarily corrupt, not at that time anyway. Much testimony from blind pig operators and other illegal booze joints points out those operators did not bribe police, as reflected in the Cannon report of 1944.
Duplessis was re-elected premier in 1944 and turned a blind eye to corruption in the force, which by now had about 250 officers split between the Montreal and Quebec City offices.
In the mid 50s provincial auditor J. Albert Vezina sniffed out plenty of fraud in the Liquor Police accounting books but he was repeatedly told to pipe down when he transmitted this information to authorities.
Another whistleblower, booze cop Hector Roy, was beaten up by colleagues and then suspended in 1956 by higher-up Willie Cote for asking questions about irregularities.
He was only reinstated a few months later after appealing directly to finance minister Onesime Gagnon. A few weeks later his Roy's boss Willie Cote told him to just stay home.
The whole house of cards came crashing down soon after Duplessis died in 1959 and Liberal Paul Sauve took over the province.
A lengthy investigation ended up in high-profile trials in 1961.
Rosario Lemire, the 73-year-old head of the QLP, had been in a top position for over a dozen years by the time he was charged with six counts of overseeing a total of $500,000 of fraudulent accounting.
At his trial several people confessed to receiving paycheques without ever doing any work for the Liquor Police.
Amazingly Lemire was only found guilty of one charge, organizing to defraud $50,000. He was sentenced to three years in prison, while he could have been given 10 years. He said he would appeal, so it's unknown whether he actually spent time behind bars.
It is occasionally suggested that bar staff sometimes bribe cops to look the other way, but none of that has been substantiated.
The disbanding of the QLP was seen to have hurt bars and nightlife throughout the province as rules were applied in a far more stringent manner, including the closing-time rule which had hitherto been regularly flouted.
Two years later Quebec eliminated that restriction, making us a unique booze central for all thirsty folks north and south of the border.
The province set up a liquor board to administer alcohol, along with a separate police squad of 35 officers to enforce the rules.
The newly-formed independent booze squad was filled with WWI vets and former provincial police officers. It had a military structure but the rules of their training were pretty loose under World War I war hero Edmond de Bellefeuille Panet, its first chief.
Bootlegging was a pretty big job to police, so the force expanded to 171 men by 1934.
Duplessis came to power in 1936 and reorganized all of Quebec's cops into four branches: highway cops, judicial police, gendarmierie and the liquor police.
Part of that reorganization involved lowering the pay of the five commissioners from $14,000 a year to $1 annually, a proposal that didn't go over too well with some, of course.
Three years later the Liberals took over and removed the liquor police from the rest of that organization, so the QLC became a separate force in 1940.
Liquor police officers were not necessarily corrupt, not at that time anyway. Much testimony from blind pig operators and other illegal booze joints points out those operators did not bribe police, as reflected in the Cannon report of 1944.
Duplessis was re-elected premier in 1944 and turned a blind eye to corruption in the force, which by now had about 250 officers split between the Montreal and Quebec City offices.
In the mid 50s provincial auditor J. Albert Vezina sniffed out plenty of fraud in the Liquor Police accounting books but he was repeatedly told to pipe down when he transmitted this information to authorities.
Another whistleblower, booze cop Hector Roy, was beaten up by colleagues and then suspended in 1956 by higher-up Willie Cote for asking questions about irregularities.
He was only reinstated a few months later after appealing directly to finance minister Onesime Gagnon. A few weeks later his Roy's boss Willie Cote told him to just stay home.
The whole house of cards came crashing down soon after Duplessis died in 1959 and Liberal Paul Sauve took over the province.
A lengthy investigation ended up in high-profile trials in 1961.
Rosario Lemire, the 73-year-old head of the QLP, had been in a top position for over a dozen years by the time he was charged with six counts of overseeing a total of $500,000 of fraudulent accounting.
At his trial several people confessed to receiving paycheques without ever doing any work for the Liquor Police.
- Purported secretaries Jean - Louis Boutte and Joseph Slythe, both of Montmagny, confessed that they received $19,000 over five years for doing absolutely nothing. A judge would not permit a lawyer to ask how they got such a sweet deal, even though everybody wanted to know.
- QLP officer Leo Therrien said that he and other officers were sent to work for the Union National re-election campaign rather than actually work at their jobs.
- Rene Mercier spent 17 days fixing Lemire's cottage and was rewarded for the labour by being put on the QLP payroll as a sub-inspector, never doing any work for them.
- Lucien Paquet, aged 47, told the court in 1961 that all he ever did for nine years was act as personal chauffeur to Willie Cote and his family.
- Lemire's stepson Del Ray Laforest, then 30, was charged with receiving $47,000 in bogus salaries and expenses. He never worked for the QLP.
- A pair of witnesses testified that they bribed a QLP officer $100 for protection.
Amazingly Lemire was only found guilty of one charge, organizing to defraud $50,000. He was sentenced to three years in prison, while he could have been given 10 years. He said he would appeal, so it's unknown whether he actually spent time behind bars.
Aftermath
The QLP was abandoned following the 1961 scandal. Henceforth local cops and the SQ took over the tasks of making surprise visits to bars inspect whether booze was bought from official locations and such other such policing.It is occasionally suggested that bar staff sometimes bribe cops to look the other way, but none of that has been substantiated.
The disbanding of the QLP was seen to have hurt bars and nightlife throughout the province as rules were applied in a far more stringent manner, including the closing-time rule which had hitherto been regularly flouted.
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