TransCanada manager allegedly had ties to Montreal mafia clan, reports Radio-Canada

Calgary-based energy company TransCanada Corp. is looking into allegations made in a televised French-language report that one of its construction managers had ties to the Montreal mafia, Radio-Canada reported on Thursday.

The report, on the French-language public broadcaster's investigative show, Enquête, included audio clips, more than a decade old, of two men appearing to talk about the construction manager over the phone. Radio-Canada reported that one of the two men on the call was Nick Rizzuto Jr. who was shot and killed in the middle of the day in a Montreal suburb in December 2009.

Radio-Canada also reported that the TransCanada manager in question had been named in the Charbonneau Commission, a Quebec public inquiry that investigated whether there was corruption in the awarding of public construction contracts.

National Observer has not been able to confirm the Radio-Canada report, and TransCanada provided only a short statement about the allegations.

"TransCanada is aware of the Enquête story and we are looking into the information internally," said TransCanada spokesman Mark Cooper in an email to National Observer sent on Friday.

For decades, the Rizzuto family had been considered to be one of the most powerful organized crime groups in Canada. Rizzuto Jr. was killed while his father, Vito Rizzuto, was serving a 10-year prison sentence in a U.S. prison for racketeering charges.

The phone tapes were captured by police as part of a major investigation called "Projet Colisée," Radio-Canada reported. This police operation concluded after years of wire taps, culminating in more than 70 arrests on Nov. 22, 2006.

The new report is surfacing at a time when TransCanada has been trying to boost its image in Quebec, where there is strong public opposition to its proposal to build the Energy East pipeline. The 4,500 kilometre project, slated to run between Alberta and New Brunswick, is considered to be the largest crude oil pipeline ever proposed in Canada.

But federal hearings on the project were disrupted in September when the three panelists presiding over the review were forced to recuse themselves for the appearance of bias. The recusals and the adjournment were prompted by a National Observer investigation that found that two of the three panelists and the chief executive of the federal pipeline regulator, Peter Watson, met privately with a TransCanada representative, former Quebec premier Jean Charest, who gave them political advice on how to convince Quebecers to support a new pipeline.

The oil and gas industry, business leaders and bankers say that the project is the key to economic growth for Alberta's oil producers, hammered in recent years by plummeting global commodity prices. First Nations Leaders, environmentalists and some local mayors say that Energy East is too risky because it may lead to spills and would push Canada's climate change goals out of reach.

Editor's note: This report was updated at 3:45 p.m. ET on Friday with a new statement from TransCanada.