The administration of Mayor Valérie Plante says it is outraged and promises to act quickly following the unveiling of a damning report on the recycling giant Ricova.
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In a report made public on Monday, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) revealed that Ricova did not share all revenues from the sale of recyclable materials with the City of Montreal, passing them through one of its subsidiaries: Ricova International inc.
According to Inspector Brigitte Bishop, the City was deprived of at least $1 million between August 2020 and July 2021. Ricova has not stopped operating Montreal’s only two sorting centers since.
Me Bishop therefore recommends terminating the contracts of the Saint-Michel and Lachine centers and banning four companies linked to Ricova and its manager, Dominic Colubriale.
“The conclusions of the BIG report on the Ricova company are revolting”, reacted the person in charge of the environmental dossier in the Plante administration, Marie-Andrée Mauger.
No break in service
She assured that the recommendations would be implemented quickly, “while ensuring that collection, sorting and processing services are maintained”.
One thing that is not so simple, because if Montreal banishes the boss of the company Dominic Colubriale, as requested by the Inspector General, this will also put an end to waste collection contracts in five boroughs.
Mme Mauger recalls that Ricova was “imposed” on the City when it bought the assets, including the contracts, of a company in the process of bankruptcy, Canadian Solid Waste (RSC), in 2020.
Indeed, as our Bureau of Investigation revealed in 2020, the Plante administration was not thrilled with the idea of working with Ricova, whose business model consisted of selling recyclable materials at the other end of the world, especially in India.
Moreover, Ricova already had a bad reputation and accumulated litigation with municipalities, including Montreal.
Despite this reputation, the Quebec government, which might have opposed Ricova’s takeover of RSC’s assets, did not see fit to intervene at the time.