Alliance Quebec no longer serves the province's English-speaking community and has mutated into nothing more than an extension of its president's law practice.

So says a damning report to the Canadian Heritage Department, which funds the English-rights lobby, from former Alliance board member Carlos Roldan.

Among other things, Roldan calls the Alliance administration exclusionary and heavy-handed, and asks the federal department, headed by Heritage Minister Sheila Copps, to investigate how $634,000 of taxpayers' money is being spent.

No one from the department responded to my requests for an interview for the past two days, but Alliance president Brent Tyler said the organization would welcome an audit.

Roldan says several current and former members of the board, chapter chairpeople, staff and volunteers throughout the beleaguered organization share his views.

Lawyer Casper Bloom, for example, says he is saddened to see the organization he helped establish imploding and blames Tyler, at least in part, for its downfall.

"The man is a bully, he's intimidating, he threatens to sue anyone who disagrees with him," he said.

"If his mother didn't give him his breakfast in the morning, he'd threaten to sue her. I mean, that's the kind of guy he is."

Board members are hesitant to criticize Tyler on the record, reinforcing his reputation as a bully with a temper. It's clear people are afraid of him. Many directed my questions to him, even though it was their opinions I was after.

"It's a mess," sighed one board member, who admitted he wasn't keen on Tyler's becoming president.

Tyler has once again landed the organization in the news with revelations that he was quietly charged in June with assaulting the organization's youth chapter president and his brother during a break in a meeting in April.

Christopher Dye, who said Tyler called him a punk and other names, immediately quit the organization that he says is nothing more than the Brent Tyler fan club.

This week, board member Peter Margo, who said he supports Tyler completely, said the scuffle with Dye was "sour grapes."

"That man has a lot of axes he's grinding," Margo said before challenging me to "write a positive story about Alliance Quebec for a change."

But another board member, who didn't want to be identified, said it was "indefensible" that Tyler hadn't formally informed the board of the charges, and he should step aside until the matter is dealt with.

Tyler said it was discussed "ad nauseam" informally.

When asked how many members Alliance had, Tyler said he didn't know but referred me to someone else at the organization.

And as the interview with him progressed, he became more agitated and angry.

"Actually, I'll tell you what, I know the tone of this column and I'm not going to co-operate with you, Sue," he said.

"You can put that in your column.

"This is going to be a hatchet job, and I've just decided that it's not that no one can get Alliance Quebec's membership numbers - it's just that Sue Montgomery can't because she's going to do a hatchet job.

"Don't bother calling the office, because I'm calling the office and my instructions will be not to give you anything because you're incapable of doing a fair story about us, all right?

"Have a great day."

It may be that kind of behaviour that prompted a board member to say that, under Tyler's leadership, Alliance has become a "pathetic joke."

"It's a misuse of public funds and a betrayal of public trust," the board member said.

Furthermore, the 40-member board is made up of former Equality Party members "who are unilingual elderly anglophones who are bitter and don't have the qualifications" to run a community organization, the board member added.

Bloom, for one, thinks the organization should be audited as soon as possible.

"It has lost all credibility whatsoever," he said. "It's a laughing stock and has become nothing more than Mr. Tyler's own personal fiefdom."

smontgomery@thegazette.southam.ca