Snowed under, again

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by GEORGE MADDUX

The snow-clearing Dubé clan, who helped expose collusion among a cartel of five of their competitors, is steamed that the same companies found guilty of price rigging will shovel this year's fluffy white stuff.

"I find it funny they can keep practicing and get contracts from the government even after they were found guilty," says Yvan Dubé of Excavation Anjou. His 18-year-old family-run company has 20 employees and holds a modest $1.5-million government contract to clear parts of Highways 25 and 40, but found themselves eliminated from the bidding process in past years.

In August, a court found Beaver Paving, Nepcom Inc., Roxboro Excavations, Giguère and Geoffroy Inc. and Excavation Loiselle et Frères guilty of forming a cartel offering non-competitive bids to the provincial Transport Ministry. The group would then subcontract much of the work to smaller companies. The scam ended up raising snow clearance costs 40 per cent higher than expected.

In September, with the help of the Federal Competition Bureau, the Dubés' campaign successfully ended with a judge fining the five companies a total of $1-million. But the Dubés consider it too small a punishment in light of practices as pure as the driven slush.

"I would have liked that it followed the law of competition. That would have banished them from bidding on new contracts," says Dubé.

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