Winning superhospital bid announced internally before it was official: witness

MONTREAL – McGill University Health Centre officials circulated an internal memo naming SNC-Lavalin the winner of a lucrative contract for a $1.3- billion superhospital despite the Quebec government later deciding to send the deal back for a second look.

Immacalata Franco, an assistant director at the facility, told the Charbonneau Commission today she was pressured by her boss to push for the SNC-Lavalin-led bid.

That supervisor was Yanai Elbaz, who faces fraud charges in the project.

Franco said Elbaz reminded her who signed her paycheques and told her who hospital boss Arthur Porter wanted to win.

Porter is also facing fraud charges in the scheme, which involvedalleged fraud worth $22.5 million.

Franco says a memo was circulated in December 2009 announcing SNC-Lavalin as the winner even though internal committees she’d sat on had concluded the opposing consortium had a better bid.

The Quebec government ultimately ended up sending the bids back for a second look, but this time Elbaz and Porter left Franco off the decision-making bodies.

SNC-Lavalin ended up with the lucrative contract in 2010 after a second process.

Under the scheme, high-ranking SNC-Lavalin executives allegedly paid off Elbaz and Porter in order to obtain the lucrative contract.