Magliocca faces charges of breach of trust by a public officer and fraud in connection with allegations he filed false expense claims while a member of council
The first of what is expected to be a parade of politicians took the witness stand virtually Monday in the trial of former city councillor Joe Magliocca.
And Quebec provincial cabinet minister Jonatan Julien told Crown prosecutor Aaron Rankin he’s he’s never met the former Calgary councillor, and never been to the Quebec City bar where Magliocca, whose given name is Biagio, claimed he bought drinks for them.
“Do you know Biagio Magliocca, who often goes by the name Joe Magliocca?” Rankin asked the Quebec minister of infrastructure.
“No,” said Julien, who took questions in English, but asked to give his answers in French and have them translated so they would be more accurate.
“Have you met him?” the prosecutor inquired.
“No,” Julien repeated.
“When is the first time you heard his name?”
“The first time I heard talking about this gentleman was when I was questioned by (RCMP Cpl.) Dave Mitchell in April 2021.”
Julien said the officer asked him about an expense claim Magliocca made in connection with a $60 tab from a Quebec City pub from Feb. 10, 2019.
Julien, then minister of natural resources, said he was on a tour of the province at the time, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
“I was meeting with the mayor of Sept-Iles,” the witness said.
Sept-Iles is about 640 kilometres northeast of the provincial capital.
“Were you having drinks with Joe Magliocca that day?” Rankin asked.
“No,” Julien said.
“Have you been to a pub in Quebec City called L’Oncle Antoine?”
“No,” Julien repeated.
Rankin then produced a copy of a receipt for $60 worth of drinks at the pub naming Julien as being there.
“Having looked at this receipt, do you remember anything of being there?”
“No, I do not,” Julien said.
“I’ve never been to that restaurant.”
Magliocca, 59, faces charges of breach of trust by a public officer and fraud in connection with allegations he filed false expense claims while a member of council during a Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Quebec City. The Quebec Winter Carnival ran at the same time.
Under cross-examination, defence counsel Aryan Sadat asked Julien if Mitchell showed him a copy of the receipt when he interviewed him and the cabinet minister said he didn’t.
Julien also told Sadat he never sent any representative from his office to the Quebec Winter Carnival, when asked by the lawyer if he did.
Court also heard from other politicians remotely, including Halifax Mayor Mike Savage and Toronto council member Paul Ainslie.
Rankin asked Ainslie about a receipt from another Quebec City restaurant called Sapristi, in which a claim of $91.98 was made by Magliocca in connection with a bill from June 2, 2019.
“Do you know Joe Magliocca?” Rankin asked.
“I only met him once. I met him at a Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting in September 2019,” Ainslie said.
That meeting was held in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., Ainslie said.
“We said hello to each other at the beginning of the meeting and that was the end of my interactions with him.”
He said he never had dinner with Magliocca in Quebec City.
The trial is set to last into next week.