MONTREAL - Parti Quebecois Leader Pauline Marois says she and her husband will sue the Montreal Gazette because of a story it published about the land her house is built on.
Marois accused the newspaper on Thursday of spreading lies with a story that suggested the couple paid off a local resident for testimony and took over public land to build their mansion.
"There are limits on trying to make people believe that if we're in politics or running a business that we are automatically under suspicion,'' Marois told a news conference.
The Gazette reported last weekend that part of Marois's opulent family estate is built on land expropriated in the 1970s for the extension of a highway. The newspaper said Marois and her husband, Claude Blanchet, merged the government land with their own land, fencing it off and building improvements on it.
The report also suggested the family paid hundreds of dollars to 86-year-old Marcel Turcotte, who had once lived in a cabin on the land.
Turcotte swore in an affidavit in 1991 he had lived on the land before 1978, clearing the way under Quebec law for the couple to build on land intended for agricultural use.
The implication of a payoff got a rise out of Marois, who called it "an odious suggestion.''
Marois said Blanchet did give Turcotte $500 several months after the process was complete but that was only to make up for hours of work the man did to assist the transaction.
"We didn't need to bribe anyone,'' said Marois, who gave no details of the impending lawsuit.
"(Turcotte) was a great gentleman in the process, and Claude wanted to thank him for all the trouble.''
The Gazette said following the Marois news conference it will stand by its story.
"She didn't say anything today that would make me reconsider our refusal to retract,'' Raymond Brassard, the newspaper's managing editor, said in an interview.
"In terms of the details, the facts of the story, I didn't hear her say anything different than what (we) wrote,'' Brassard said. "The basic facts are pretty much the same.''
Brassard said not all the documents provided to reporters on Thursday are the same as documents the newspaper had received.
Brassard also denied the PQ leader's allegation the article was an attempt to smear her reputation two days before a byelection this week that she won easily.
He said the story had been researched for weeks and that the reporter who wrote it attempted for days to contact her before the paper made a decision to go with it.
"A public figure is always open to scrutiny,'' Brassard said. "We don't take any greater pleasure in looking into one over another.''
The PQ leader said several neighbours had provided the couple all the details they needed under Quebec rules to obtain the right to build their house on the agricultural land.
Marois said she and her husband entrusted most of the transaction to their lawyer to avoid any suggestion they were using their influence.
Marois blasted the Gazette, saying the paper was willing to say anything about her because she is a politician and her husband is a successful businessman.
Blanchet was once president of Quebec's investment arm, the Societe generale de financement.
