In the limelight again

03-Au sommet_04-Profile 12-04-19 7:25 AM Page 24
de vulgarisation publiés dans les journaux. Ce qui lui fait
dire: « C’est pour tout ça que la juge Charbonneau a fait
appel à moi ».
Il faut dire que le porte-parole de l’Opposition officielle en
matière de sécurité publique, Bertrand St-Arnaud, lors d’un
débat à l’Assemblée nationale, a référé à des propos de Me
Lussier qu’il a qualifié « d’expert bien connu des milieux juridiques » pour réclamer du gouvernement la mise en place d’une
commission d’enquête relative au secteur de la construction.
Au cours d’une interview, Me Lussier avait fait valoir que la
commission d’enquête a le mérite d’exposer un problème systémique, de procéder rapidement et en public et de n’accorder
aucun droit au silence. Il avançait qu’il n’y avait pas d’autres
moyens d’obtenir rapidement des réponses aux trop nombreuses questions que les enquêtes journalistiques et les aveux
de certains avaient récemment suscitées.
Ironie du sort, la Gendarmerie royale du Canada refuse de
partager des éléments de preuve obtenus en 2006 dans le cadre
d’une opération menée contre la mafia montréalaise qui aurait
permis de prouver des liens entre le crime organisé et l’industrie de la construction. L’opération avait notamment mené à
l’arrestation du parrain Nick Rizzuto.
Sa carrière en trois actes
Les commissions d’enquête relèvent du droit administratif, un
secteur où Me Lussier se retrouve comme un poisson dans
l’eau, depuis le début de sa pratique.
C’est en 1978 que Me Lussier lance sa carrière au bureau
Phillips & Vineberg axé sur le monde des affaires. C’est un terrain totalement inconnu pour celui qui a grandi au sein d’une
famille du milieu universitaire appartenant à la bourgeoisie
d’Outremont-Côte-des-Neiges.
Son père Charles a été un grand serviteur de l’État. Pour le
Québec d’abord. Il a ouvert la Délégation du Québec à Paris,
en 1960. Ensuite il a fait carrière au gouvernement fédéral, à
titre de directeur du Conseil des arts du Canada et sous-ministre adjoint au Secrétariat d’État, sous la gouverne du ministre Gérard Pelletier. Sa mère Monique a été professeure
titulaire en psychologie, à l’Université d’Ottawa.
Son oncle Irénée Lussier avait été recteur de l’Université de
Montréal et son grand-père Léon Lortie secrétaire général de
l’Université de Montréal. On doit à ce dernier la création de la
Faculté de l’éducation permanente. « Tout cela a été très marquant dans ma formation intellectuelle. »
Quand Me Lussier passe chez Desjardins Ducharme, étude
In the limelight again
Sylvain Lussier is already one of Quebec’s best known litigators. He is
now taking on a new high-profile mandate as head prosecutor of Quebec’s
Charbonneau Commission.
I
t is hardly surprising that Justice France
Charbonneau, chair of the inquiry commission into the awarding of construction
contracts by the Quebec Government,
appointed Sylvain Lussier as chief prosecutor. Over the years Lussier has become a regular
fixture on the inquiry commission circuit.
A partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt’s
Montreal office, Lussier first became a familiar
face during the televised hearings of the Gomery
Commission into the federal government’s sponsorship program in 2005. As lead Crown counsel,
he was given the delicate task of presenting the
federal government’s arguments. Viewers captivated by the hearings watched him question
dozens of witnesses, including then Prime
Minister Paul Martin and Ministers Stéphane
Dion and Martin Cauchon. Following the Gomery
Commission, he became a frequent legal commentator, most notably during the Oliphant
Commission that investigated the Karlheinz
Schreiber affair and Quebec’s Bastarache
Commission, charged with investigating the
process of appointing judges in that province.
His extensive track record has now earned
him the daunting task of shedding light on allegations of systemic corruption in Quebec’s construction industry. The probe is expected to take
up to two years. Judge France Charbonneau of
the Quebec Superior Court will be investigating
24
the awarding of government contracts and its
ties to political party funding. Lussier’s first challenge surfaced in March when the RCMP refused
to share with the Charbonneau Commission
information that it had gathered as part of a
2006 roundup of suspected mobsters.
Lussier cut his teeth in law when he joined
the Montreal office of Phillips & Vineberg in
1978. The practice of commercial law in a downtown firm was a world unfamiliar to him. His
father had an illustrious career working as a civil
servant — he opened the Quebec government
office in Paris and served as director of the
Canada Council for the Arts in the 1970s. Much of
his family worked in academia, including his
mother, a tenured professor in psychology at the
University of Ottawa.
Lussier moved on to practise commercial law
at Desjardins Ducharme (which dissolved in
2007), and developed an expertise in administrative law, his first passion — he prefers its more
flexible rules, he says, at least compared to those
of the civil courts. His clients included HydroQuébec and the the province’s Energy Board.
Over the years, Lussier has shown his range in
a number of mandates. Much of his practice
focused on economic development projects,
which exposed him to issues pertaining to
Aboriginal law. He also handled competition files
defending class action lawsuits. His outreach
N AT I O N A L
projects have earned him the respect of his peers.
He led an audit of Cameroon’s judicial system,
known for its systemic corruption. “In view of its
provision of development funds, the World Bank
required the implementation of remedial measures,” he explains. As if this was not enough to
keep him busy, the federal Minister of Justice has
appointed him as special advocate for the protection of refugees under the Immigration Act.
And he has regularly lectured on professional
ethics for the American College of Trial Lawyers.
He was also a longtime member of the Quebec
Bar’s discipline committee.
A skilled litigator, Lussier says that experience has taught him that often the best outcome is a well-crafted settlement: “I now find it
less important to win than to settle,” he explains.
He considers one of his proudest achievements
his work in a file involving series of explosions
and fires that destroyed seven buildings in
Trois-Rivières and killed one person and injured
five others. The victims and their families took
Hydro-Québec, Gaz Métro, a gas distributor, and
the city to court. The three parties could have
fought for years to sort out their share of the
responsibility, he says. Instead, after a careful
evaluation of the damages, they decided to
quickly settle the issue. “As an officer of the
court, this is the case that has given me the
most satisfaction.” N
April · May 2012