Léo-Paul Lauzon
Encyclopedia
Léo-Paul Lauzon is an author, researcher, accountant, professor, and social activist in the Canadian
province of Quebec
. He is best known for his work in seeking corporate social accountability.
. His father abandoned the family in the late 1950s, when Lauzon was twelve, and he was forced to work as a delivery boy for a pharmaceutical company to support his mother and two sisters. Lauzon has said that the poverty of his early years helped him develop a strong social conscience, adding that he "didn't have the time or the luxury of being a political revolutionary" while attending school.
He is a chartered accountant
, having placed first among all students in Quebec's 1970 examination. He also finished first among 1,778 candidates in Canada's 1974 certified management accountancy
examination. This has not prevented him from criticizing his profession; in 1991, he said that "accounting is closer to the occult sciences than to exact mathematics." He has called for accounting students to be given a more humanistic learning approach, with the intent of creating independent thinkers who are effective at creating social change.
Lauzon has a Master of Business Administration
degree from the Hautes Études Commerciales of Montreal
and a Ph.D in Management Sciences from the University of Grenoble
in France
. He joined the Accounting Sciences Department of the Université du Québec à Montréal
in 1973 and founded the university's chair of socio-economic sciences in 2006.
In a 1989 interview, he said, "Being an accountant is an excellent training to criticize big business. I know how corporate executives think because I have the same mentality myself. The only difference is that I have a social conscience and most of them don't." He added that he was "blacklisted in many business circles" and said that some of his colleagues were afraid to work with him because of his reputation. Later in the same year, however, Lauzon said that his research was gaining mainstream acceptance and that Le Journal de Montréal
and the Quebec Managment Accounting Association were funding some of his work.
Lauzon has said that he is not anti-capitalist and supports private enterprise. He describes himself as a social democrat.
Lauzon released a report in 1986 that showed strong disparities between Quebec businesses as regards the number of francophones in key decision-making positions: most "decision makers" in some companies were francophone, while in others they represented less than ten per cent of the total. The study has been interpreted as showing the rise of a new francophone business culture in Quebec, rather than francophone integration into traditionally dominant anglophone companies.
Women in business
In 1987, Lauzon oversaw a study indicating that less than three per cent of top management jobs in Canadian companies were held by women, despite the fact that more women were entering the workforce. At the time of the report's release, he said, "If you listen to representatives of the private sector, then we're in the best possible world, and women hold important positions. [...] This research is based on facts that show clearly that reality is very different." He added that there was no valid reason for the numbers to be so low and that private sector firms were afraid of change in this field.
Follow-up studies found that female representation in top management had increased to only 6.7% in 1990 and 7.2% in 1992. Lauzon noted that even these increases were misleading, in that some female executives held positions that were created solely to give a misleading impression of gender integration.
Securities commissions
Lauzon criticized the securities commissions
of Ontario
and Quebec in 1989, saying that they were well-intentioned but largely ineffective and overly dependent on "self-serving" regulations developed by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants
.
Corporate reporting
Lauzon led an academic study in 1990 that argued most Canadian companies did not supply enough information about their financial affairs and social performance in corporate annual reports. He said that only fifty of the approximately three hundred companies his team examined had "acceptable or better than acceptable" reports, covering items such as market and regional analyses, charitable donations, environmental records, and employment statistics. Most companies, he said, reported only "the strict minimum required by law."
"Quebec Inc."
Lauzon has strongly criticized the Quebec government's track record in building a provincial corporate sector. He argued in February 1992 that the province had given away $1.5 billion in tax incentives to create a brokerage industry, with meagre results. In the same year, he accused the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec
of propping up francophone entrepreneurs with little business experience, who in turn produced minimal financial returns. He has also accused the Caisse of being subject to political manipulation and of making decisions "without foresight or vision."
Lauzon has clarified that he is not against government support for socially beneficial business ventures. Rather, he opposes subsidies that "boost only the bank balance of government-favoured entrepreneurs." In 1993, he called on Quebec to follow Ontario's example and require public disclosure of the salaries and perks of the province's top five public sector executives.
Pulp and paper sector
Lauzon issued a report for Greenpeace
in August 1992, arguing that Canada's pulp and paper industry
was more prosperous than Canadians had been led to believe. As such, he argued that the sector should not be allowed to escape its financial obligations to clean its environmental pollution. The Canadian Pulp and Paper Association
strongly criticized the report, saying that its language was "offensive and unfounded." In 1995, Lauzon issued another report accusing Canadian pulp and paper firms of being much less efficient than their American and Scandinavia
n counterparts.
Alcohol and tobacco
In 1994, Lauzon released a report arguing that privatizing provincial liquor boards would result in increased levels of alcoholism, higher prices, and more smuggling. He concluded that privatization would compromise government efforts to combat alcoholism. In another study issued the same year, he accused cigarette
makers of investing record windfall profits outside of Canada as their domestic clientele died. Saying there was "no worse corporate citizen" than the tobacco industry, he called for higher tobacco taxes in both Canada and the United States of America. Imperial Tobacco
responded to Lauzon's report with its own study; one of its conclusions was that the premature death of some smokers yielded savings to the Canadian health sector. Not surprisingly, this statement was widely criticized.
Municipal services
Lauzon issued a critical report about Montreal's parking services in 1996, arguing that a recent decision to privatize the sector had been beneficial for some leading executives and harmful to everyone else. Lauzon wrote that municipal revenues from privatization were less than expected, while drivers were required to pay more in parking rates. The following year, he oversaw a study that argued installing water meters in Montreal houses would be costly and not necessarily provide an environmental benefit.
Pharmaceutical drugs
In mid-1998, Lauzon and Gino Lambert issued a study indicating that brand name drug prices had increased significantly over the last decade, rising from 10.7% of Canadian health spending in 1985 to 14.4% in 1996 and resulting in windfall profits for multinational medical companies. The authors wrote that "while our governments work furiously to cut public expenses in the health sector, the brand-drug industry builds up billions in profits year after year," adding that "government must think seriously of saving money on brand drugs, allowing more for other activities of our collective health-care system that need it greatly." Lauzon and Lambert also criticized the Canadian and Quebec governments for giving extended patent protection and tax breaks to the industry. Lauzon later co-authored a follow-up study in 2002 confirming the same trends; the latter study was cited by Roy Romanow
, who was then leading a national committee on the future of Canadian health care. A third study issued by Lauzon in 2006 showed that Canada's pharmaceutical companies had made an average 29% return on investments since 1995, largely due to increased prices.
Banks
In 2004, Lauzon proposed that government agencies such as the post office
should provide personal banking services. He argued that this practice would be beneficial to Canadians, both because it would provide increased revenues to the state and because commercial banks were making huge profits at the expense of their customers.
In the same year, he argued that Canada's five major banks had avoided $10 billion in taxes since 1991 via offshore tax haven
s such as the Cayman Islands
. The Montreal Gazette endorsed Lauzon's findings, if not his specific recommendations, and called for the government to close Canada's tax haven loopholes.
Oil and gas sector
In June 1998, Lauzon co-authored a study calling on governments to enforce competition laws in the retail gas sector in order to prevent price gouging
. Seven years later, he argued that the Canadian government should nationalize the oil industry; he charged that oil companies were making "immoral profits on the back of this society" and said that the resource had to be repatriated.
Tax burdens
Lauzon released a report entitled "The Other Fiscal Imbalance
" in 2006, drawing attention to an ongoing shift in the national tax burden from corporations to the general population.
had paid no income taxes on profits amounting to $243 million between 1980 and 1985. He criticized existing laws that he said favoured such companies, by allowing them to make write-offs against depreciation on office property and keep the unpaid taxes as part of their cash flow. Later in the same year, he criticized a $83.3 million Quebec government loan to Noranda on the grounds that its terms provided $62.5 million in tax savings for the company without requiring that the actual loan ever be repaid.
Lauzon issued a study for Greenpeace in 1990, arguing that Canadian Pacific Forest Products, the owner of Canada's most polluting mill, had made $550 million in profits over the last two years but was investing only $18 million to develop environmental technology.
In September 1990, Lauzon issued a seventy-two-page document on the Repap corporation, accusing it of using questionable accounting practicies to understate its debt, overstate its profits, and minimize its taxes. The company's chairman rejected the charges and said that Lauzon had used "incompete and inaccurate" information to prepare his report. Lauzon defended his work, although he acknowledged that some of statements in the final draft were unprofessional and should have been left out. (Repap's finances were later given extremely low ratings by the Canadian Bond Rating Service, although a representative for that group said that Lauzon's study was not a factor in its decision.)
In 1991, Lauzon accused Videotron
of a poor record of accomplishments in spite of extensive financial support from the provincial government. Two years later, he wrote that the Canadian Marconi Company was shifting funds and operations out of Quebec despite receiving $195 million in government aid over the previous decade.
In 1992, Lauzon issued a report accusing Audrey Resources Inc. of systematically misrepresenting its finances. Some former company representatives responded by launching a $750,000 libel suit against Lauzon and the Universite du Quebec a Montreal. Lauzon refused to retract his charges, although he noted that he did not accuse Audrey of breaking any laws. Newspaper reports do not indicate how the matter was resolved.
in December 1991, saying that the company had provided extensive social information in its annual report. The crown corporation won first place for four consecutive years in a financial and social disclosure competition started by Lauzon.
made substantial profits by falsely certifying thousands of Quebec orphans as mentally ill
during the 1940s and 1950s. The authors made a conservative estimate that religious groups received $70 million in subsidies (measured in 1999 dollars) by claiming the children as "mentally deficient," while the government saved $37 million simply by having one of its orphanages redesignated from an educational institution to a psychiatric hospital. A representative of a religious order involved with the orphanages accused the authors of making "false assertions."
in Montreal said that he was overly dependent on annual reports and that such documents do not always provide a full assessment of a company's social activities. As against this, a representative of the Professional Corporation of Certified Management Accountants in Quebec argued in the same period that Lauzon had played a prominent role in changing Quebec's corporate culture and forcing companies to seriously address social matters.
in very strong terms. In 2005, he said, "We are very lucky we did not become independent with Lucien Bouchard
, Bernard Landry
, Joseph Facal
. They would have separated us from Canada and the day after we would have become a protectorate of the United States, like Puerto Rico
."
He endorsed Paul Cliche, a former Parti Québécois member running as an independent, in a 2001 provincial by-election
in Mercier
. Cliche won support from several left-wing activists and finished a strong third.
Lauzon himself ran for the New Democratic Party
in the Montreal
riding of Outremont
in the 2006 Canadian federal election
and was considered a star candidate
for the party. He argued in this campaign that he was tired of Quebec's traditional dichotomy between federalism
and sovereigntism, and was quoted as saying, "What I believe first is in a federalism of compassion, of equity, of sharing. Now it's time for the independence, the sovereignty of Canada." He received 17.20% of the vote, finishing third against Liberal
cabinet minister Jean Lapierre
.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
province of Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
. He is best known for his work in seeking corporate social accountability.
Early life and education
Lauzon was raised in a low-income household in MontrealMontreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
. His father abandoned the family in the late 1950s, when Lauzon was twelve, and he was forced to work as a delivery boy for a pharmaceutical company to support his mother and two sisters. Lauzon has said that the poverty of his early years helped him develop a strong social conscience, adding that he "didn't have the time or the luxury of being a political revolutionary" while attending school.
He is a chartered accountant
Chartered Accountant
Chartered Accountants were the first accountants to form a professional body, initially established in Britain in 1854. The Edinburgh Society of Accountants , the Glasgow Institute of Accountants and Actuaries and the Aberdeen Society of Accountants were each granted a royal charter almost from...
, having placed first among all students in Quebec's 1970 examination. He also finished first among 1,778 candidates in Canada's 1974 certified management accountancy
Certified Management Accountant
The title Certified Management Accountant is used by various professional bodies around the world to designate their different professional certifications....
examination. This has not prevented him from criticizing his profession; in 1991, he said that "accounting is closer to the occult sciences than to exact mathematics." He has called for accounting students to be given a more humanistic learning approach, with the intent of creating independent thinkers who are effective at creating social change.
Lauzon has a Master of Business Administration
Master of Business Administration
The Master of Business Administration is a :master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States, emerging from the late 19th century as the country industrialized and companies sought out...
degree from the Hautes Études Commerciales of Montreal
HEC Montréal
HEC Montréal , is the independent affiliated business school of the Université de Montréal, and the oldest management School in Canada. It holds accreditations from AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA, one of three schools in North America to hold triple accreditation in management education...
and a Ph.D in Management Sciences from the University of Grenoble
University of Grenoble
University of Grenoble or Grenoble University was a university in Grenoble, France until 1970, when it was split into several different institutions:...
in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. He joined the Accounting Sciences Department of the Université du Québec à Montréal
Université du Québec à Montréal
The Université du Québec à Montréal is one of four universities in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.-Basic facts:The UQAM is the largest constituent element of the Université du Québec , a public university system with other branches in Gatineau , Rimouski, Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec City, Chicoutimi, and...
in 1973 and founded the university's chair of socio-economic sciences in 2006.
Social accounting
Lauzon published a book entitled Social Accounting in 1974, promoting a system of evaluating companies in terms of social responsibility. Since then, Lauzon he examined several companies in areas such as environmental protection, human relations, equal opportunities and consumer interests, making extensive use of corporate annual reports.In a 1989 interview, he said, "Being an accountant is an excellent training to criticize big business. I know how corporate executives think because I have the same mentality myself. The only difference is that I have a social conscience and most of them don't." He added that he was "blacklisted in many business circles" and said that some of his colleagues were afraid to work with him because of his reputation. Later in the same year, however, Lauzon said that his research was gaining mainstream acceptance and that Le Journal de Montréal
Le Journal de Montréal
Le Journal de Montréal is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and is the largest-circulation French-language newspaper in North America. Established by Pierre Péladeau in 1964, it is owned by the Sun Media division of Quebecor Media. It is also Canada's largest tabloid...
and the Quebec Managment Accounting Association were funding some of his work.
Lauzon has said that he is not anti-capitalist and supports private enterprise. He describes himself as a social democrat.
Studies of corporate culture
Francophones in Quebec businessLauzon released a report in 1986 that showed strong disparities between Quebec businesses as regards the number of francophones in key decision-making positions: most "decision makers" in some companies were francophone, while in others they represented less than ten per cent of the total. The study has been interpreted as showing the rise of a new francophone business culture in Quebec, rather than francophone integration into traditionally dominant anglophone companies.
Women in business
In 1987, Lauzon oversaw a study indicating that less than three per cent of top management jobs in Canadian companies were held by women, despite the fact that more women were entering the workforce. At the time of the report's release, he said, "If you listen to representatives of the private sector, then we're in the best possible world, and women hold important positions. [...] This research is based on facts that show clearly that reality is very different." He added that there was no valid reason for the numbers to be so low and that private sector firms were afraid of change in this field.
Follow-up studies found that female representation in top management had increased to only 6.7% in 1990 and 7.2% in 1992. Lauzon noted that even these increases were misleading, in that some female executives held positions that were created solely to give a misleading impression of gender integration.
Securities commissions
Lauzon criticized the securities commissions
Securities Commission
Securities Commission a statutory body entrusted with the responsibility of regulating and systematically developing the capital markets in Malaysia.-History:...
of Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
and Quebec in 1989, saying that they were well-intentioned but largely ineffective and overly dependent on "self-serving" regulations developed by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants
Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants
The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants was incorporated by a Private Act of the Canadian Parliament in 1902. This Act, now known as the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants Act, was last amended in 1990 to reflect the CICA’s current mandate and powers.Working in collaboration with...
.
Corporate reporting
Lauzon led an academic study in 1990 that argued most Canadian companies did not supply enough information about their financial affairs and social performance in corporate annual reports. He said that only fifty of the approximately three hundred companies his team examined had "acceptable or better than acceptable" reports, covering items such as market and regional analyses, charitable donations, environmental records, and employment statistics. Most companies, he said, reported only "the strict minimum required by law."
"Quebec Inc."
Lauzon has strongly criticized the Quebec government's track record in building a provincial corporate sector. He argued in February 1992 that the province had given away $1.5 billion in tax incentives to create a brokerage industry, with meagre results. In the same year, he accused the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec
The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec manages public pension plans in the Canadian province of Quebec. It was founded in 1965 by an act of the National Assembly...
of propping up francophone entrepreneurs with little business experience, who in turn produced minimal financial returns. He has also accused the Caisse of being subject to political manipulation and of making decisions "without foresight or vision."
Lauzon has clarified that he is not against government support for socially beneficial business ventures. Rather, he opposes subsidies that "boost only the bank balance of government-favoured entrepreneurs." In 1993, he called on Quebec to follow Ontario's example and require public disclosure of the salaries and perks of the province's top five public sector executives.
Pulp and paper sector
Lauzon issued a report for Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
in August 1992, arguing that Canada's pulp and paper industry
Pulp and paper industry
The global pulp and paper industry is dominated by North American , northern European and East Asian countries...
was more prosperous than Canadians had been led to believe. As such, he argued that the sector should not be allowed to escape its financial obligations to clean its environmental pollution. The Canadian Pulp and Paper Association
Canadian Pulp and Paper Association
The work of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association is carried out through the volunteer efforts of the CEOs and executives of the member companies. These individuals work together through committees and task forces. Their common goal is to increase the knowledge base of the industry and raise the...
strongly criticized the report, saying that its language was "offensive and unfounded." In 1995, Lauzon issued another report accusing Canadian pulp and paper firms of being much less efficient than their American and Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n counterparts.
Alcohol and tobacco
In 1994, Lauzon released a report arguing that privatizing provincial liquor boards would result in increased levels of alcoholism, higher prices, and more smuggling. He concluded that privatization would compromise government efforts to combat alcoholism. In another study issued the same year, he accused cigarette
Cigarette
A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...
makers of investing record windfall profits outside of Canada as their domestic clientele died. Saying there was "no worse corporate citizen" than the tobacco industry, he called for higher tobacco taxes in both Canada and the United States of America. Imperial Tobacco
Imperial Tobacco
Imperial Tobacco is a global tobacco company headquartered in Bristol, United Kingdom. It is the world’s fourth-largest cigarette company measured by market share , and the world's largest producer of cigars, fine-cut tobacco and tobacco papers...
responded to Lauzon's report with its own study; one of its conclusions was that the premature death of some smokers yielded savings to the Canadian health sector. Not surprisingly, this statement was widely criticized.
Municipal services
Lauzon issued a critical report about Montreal's parking services in 1996, arguing that a recent decision to privatize the sector had been beneficial for some leading executives and harmful to everyone else. Lauzon wrote that municipal revenues from privatization were less than expected, while drivers were required to pay more in parking rates. The following year, he oversaw a study that argued installing water meters in Montreal houses would be costly and not necessarily provide an environmental benefit.
Pharmaceutical drugs
In mid-1998, Lauzon and Gino Lambert issued a study indicating that brand name drug prices had increased significantly over the last decade, rising from 10.7% of Canadian health spending in 1985 to 14.4% in 1996 and resulting in windfall profits for multinational medical companies. The authors wrote that "while our governments work furiously to cut public expenses in the health sector, the brand-drug industry builds up billions in profits year after year," adding that "government must think seriously of saving money on brand drugs, allowing more for other activities of our collective health-care system that need it greatly." Lauzon and Lambert also criticized the Canadian and Quebec governments for giving extended patent protection and tax breaks to the industry. Lauzon later co-authored a follow-up study in 2002 confirming the same trends; the latter study was cited by Roy Romanow
Roy Romanow
Roy John Romanow, PC, OC, QC, SOM is a Canadian politician and the 12th Premier of Saskatchewan ....
, who was then leading a national committee on the future of Canadian health care. A third study issued by Lauzon in 2006 showed that Canada's pharmaceutical companies had made an average 29% return on investments since 1995, largely due to increased prices.
Banks
In 2004, Lauzon proposed that government agencies such as the post office
Post office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
should provide personal banking services. He argued that this practice would be beneficial to Canadians, both because it would provide increased revenues to the state and because commercial banks were making huge profits at the expense of their customers.
In the same year, he argued that Canada's five major banks had avoided $10 billion in taxes since 1991 via offshore tax haven
Tax haven
A tax haven is a state or a country or territory where certain taxes are levied at a low rate or not at all while offering due process, good governance and a low corruption rate....
s such as the Cayman Islands
Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica...
. The Montreal Gazette endorsed Lauzon's findings, if not his specific recommendations, and called for the government to close Canada's tax haven loopholes.
Oil and gas sector
In June 1998, Lauzon co-authored a study calling on governments to enforce competition laws in the retail gas sector in order to prevent price gouging
Price gouging
Price gouging is a pejorative term referring to a situation in which a seller prices goods or commodities much higher than is considered reasonable or fair. In precise, legal usage, it is the name of a crime that applies in some of the United States during civil emergencies...
. Seven years later, he argued that the Canadian government should nationalize the oil industry; he charged that oil companies were making "immoral profits on the back of this society" and said that the resource had to be repatriated.
Tax burdens
Lauzon released a report entitled "The Other Fiscal Imbalance
Fiscal imbalance
- Meaning and Types :Fiscal imbalance is the term used to denote a mismatch in the revenue powers and expenditure responsibilities of a government. In the literature on fiscal federalism, two types of fiscal imbalances are measured: Vertical Fiscal Imbalance and Horizontal Fiscal Imbalance...
" in 2006, drawing attention to an ongoing shift in the national tax burden from corporations to the general population.
Criticism of specific corporations
Lauzon has issued several reports targeting the practices of specific corporations. In 1988, he wrote that the Campeau CorporationCampeau Corporation
Campeau Corporation was a Canadian real estate development and investment company founded by entrepreneur Robert Campeau. It was infamous from its ultimately unsuccessful acquisitions of American department store holding companies Allied Stores in 1986 and Federated Department Stores in 1988...
had paid no income taxes on profits amounting to $243 million between 1980 and 1985. He criticized existing laws that he said favoured such companies, by allowing them to make write-offs against depreciation on office property and keep the unpaid taxes as part of their cash flow. Later in the same year, he criticized a $83.3 million Quebec government loan to Noranda on the grounds that its terms provided $62.5 million in tax savings for the company without requiring that the actual loan ever be repaid.
Lauzon issued a study for Greenpeace in 1990, arguing that Canadian Pacific Forest Products, the owner of Canada's most polluting mill, had made $550 million in profits over the last two years but was investing only $18 million to develop environmental technology.
In September 1990, Lauzon issued a seventy-two-page document on the Repap corporation, accusing it of using questionable accounting practicies to understate its debt, overstate its profits, and minimize its taxes. The company's chairman rejected the charges and said that Lauzon had used "incompete and inaccurate" information to prepare his report. Lauzon defended his work, although he acknowledged that some of statements in the final draft were unprofessional and should have been left out. (Repap's finances were later given extremely low ratings by the Canadian Bond Rating Service, although a representative for that group said that Lauzon's study was not a factor in its decision.)
In 1991, Lauzon accused Videotron
Vidéotron
Vidéotron GP is a Canadian integrated telecommunications company active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and Internet access services. Currently, the company primarily serves Quebec, as well as the francophone...
of a poor record of accomplishments in spite of extensive financial support from the provincial government. Two years later, he wrote that the Canadian Marconi Company was shifting funds and operations out of Quebec despite receiving $195 million in government aid over the previous decade.
In 1992, Lauzon issued a report accusing Audrey Resources Inc. of systematically misrepresenting its finances. Some former company representatives responded by launching a $750,000 libel suit against Lauzon and the Universite du Quebec a Montreal. Lauzon refused to retract his charges, although he noted that he did not accuse Audrey of breaking any laws. Newspaper reports do not indicate how the matter was resolved.
Praise for specific corporations
Lauzon offered praise for Hydro-QuebecHydro-Québec
Hydro-Québec is a government-owned public utility established in 1944 by the Government of Quebec. Based in Montreal, the company is in charge of the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity across Quebec....
in December 1991, saying that the company had provided extensive social information in its annual report. The crown corporation won first place for four consecutive years in a financial and social disclosure competition started by Lauzon.
Other writings
In 1999, Lauzon and Martin Poirier issued a report arguing that the Quebec government and the Roman Catholic ChurchRoman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
made substantial profits by falsely certifying thousands of Quebec orphans as mentally ill
Duplessis Orphans
The Duplessis Orphans were the victims of a scheme in which several thousand orphaned children were falsely certified as mentally ill by the government of the province of Quebec, Canada, and confined to psychiatric institutions.-Overview:...
during the 1940s and 1950s. The authors made a conservative estimate that religious groups received $70 million in subsidies (measured in 1999 dollars) by claiming the children as "mentally deficient," while the government saved $37 million simply by having one of its orphanages redesignated from an educational institution to a psychiatric hospital. A representative of a religious order involved with the orphanages accused the authors of making "false assertions."
Critical assessment
Lauzon's work has been criticized by several business figures. In 1989, an executive of Standard LifeStandard Life (Canada)
The Standard Life Assurance Company of Canada is a major investment, retirement and financial protection company and is part of the Standard Life Group that is headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland. Standard Life has been a prominent player in the Canadian marketplace since 1833.The company...
in Montreal said that he was overly dependent on annual reports and that such documents do not always provide a full assessment of a company's social activities. As against this, a representative of the Professional Corporation of Certified Management Accountants in Quebec argued in the same period that Lauzon had played a prominent role in changing Quebec's corporate culture and forcing companies to seriously address social matters.
Political activities
Lauzon has supported the principle of Quebec sovereignty but has also criticized prominent sovereigntist politicians of the Parti QuébécoisParti Québécois
The Parti Québécois is a centre-left political party that advocates national sovereignty for the province of Quebec and secession from Canada. The Party traditionally has support from the labour movement. Unlike many other social-democratic parties, its ties with the labour movement are informal...
in very strong terms. In 2005, he said, "We are very lucky we did not become independent with Lucien Bouchard
Lucien Bouchard
Lucien Bouchard, is a Canadian lawyer, diplomat, politician and former Minister of the Environment of the Canadian Federal Government. He was the Leader of Opposition in the Canadian House of Commons from 1993 to 1996, and the 27th Premier of Quebec from January 29, 1996 to March 8, 2001...
, Bernard Landry
Bernard Landry
Bernard Landry, is a Quebec lawyer, teacher, politician, who served as the 28th Premier of Quebec , leader of the Opposition and leader of the Parti Québécois .-Personal:...
, Joseph Facal
Joseph Facal
Joseph Facal is a politician, academic, and journalist in the Canadian province of Quebec. He was a Parti Québécois member of the National Assembly of Quebec from 1994 to 2003 and was a cabinet minister in the governments of Lucien Bouchard and Bernard Landry.-Early life and career:Facal was born...
. They would have separated us from Canada and the day after we would have become a protectorate of the United States, like Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
."
He endorsed Paul Cliche, a former Parti Québécois member running as an independent, in a 2001 provincial by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
in Mercier
Mercier (provincial electoral district)
Mercier is a provincial electoral district in Quebec, Canada that elects members to the National Assembly of Quebec. The district is located in Montreal. It is bounded to the north and east by the Canadian Pacific Railway, to the south by Rue Rachel and to the west by Avenue de l'Esplanade. The...
. Cliche won support from several left-wing activists and finished a strong third.
Lauzon himself ran for the New Democratic Party
New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...
in the Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
riding of Outremont
Outremont (electoral district)
Outremont is a federal electoral district in Quebec, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1935 to 1949, and since 1968...
in the 2006 Canadian federal election
Canadian federal election, 2006
The 2006 Canadian federal election was held on January 23, 2006, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 39th Parliament of Canada. The Conservative Party of Canada won the greatest number of seats: 40.3% of seats, or 124 out of 308, up from 99 seats in 2004, and 36.3% of votes:...
and was considered a star candidate
Star candidate
A star candidate refers to a high profile individual who has been recruited as a candidate by a political party. Star candidates have usually excelled in fields outside of politics such as academia, business, the media, journalism and/or sports...
for the party. He argued in this campaign that he was tired of Quebec's traditional dichotomy between federalism
Canadian federalism
Canada is a federation with two distinct jurisdictions of political authority: the country-wide federal government and the ten regionally-based provincial governments. It also has three territorial governments in the far north, though these are subject to the federal government...
and sovereigntism, and was quoted as saying, "What I believe first is in a federalism of compassion, of equity, of sharing. Now it's time for the independence, the sovereignty of Canada." He received 17.20% of the vote, finishing third against Liberal
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
cabinet minister Jean Lapierre
Jean Lapierre
Jean-Charles Lapierre, PC is a Canadian television broadcaster and a former federal politician.He was Paul Martin's Quebec lieutenant during the period of the Martin government. He returned to the Canadian House of Commons after an eleven year absence when he won a seat in the 2004 federal...
.
Selected bibliography
- L'Homme d'affaires québécois des années 80 (1983, with Michel G. Bédard and Gilbert Tarrab)
- Information sur les effets des variations de prix (1984)
- Privatisations : l'autre point de vue (with others) (1998?)