MONTREAL - Documents relating to Quebec's commission on reasonable accommodation have vanished after being left in a taxi by inquiry co-chairman Gerard Bouchard.
Bouchard realized he forgot his briefcase in a cab after getting out in Montreal's Chinatown district last week, said Sylvain Leclerc, a spokesman for the commission.
Commission staff tried to find the driver and the taxi company but did not have any success.
"Unfortunately Mr. Bouchard couldn't remember the taxi company he used,'' Leclerc said Sunday.
Leclerc said the briefcase contained several pieces of identification and the co-ordinates of the commission which would have allowed anyone who found the briefcase to return it. But nothing has surfaced in the week since the case was lost on Feb. 17.
"We're not considering this a lost object anymore,'' Leclerc said. "We're treating it as a stolen object and we have reported the matter to the police.''
The loss of the documents will not prevent the commission from coming out with its report in May.
Bouchard and co-chairman Charles Taylor presided over a series of hearings in Quebec that looked at the province's efforts to integrate immigrants. The hearings, which began in December, wrapped up last month.
Leclerc said there was a few hundred dollars in the briefcase along with the documents.
"We assume that the person who got into the taxi after Mr. Bouchard possibly saw that and decided to keep the money and throw the briefcase into the garbage,'' Leclerc said.
"There were documents relating to the commission, there were Mr. Bouchard's private documents, there was money but anyone who opened the briefcase would know quickly what they had and could have phoned us. That wasn't done so I assume the person saw the money in the briefcase, kept it and threw away the rest.''
Bouchard lost the briefcase around 5 p.m. and paid with a taxi coupon.
