MONTREAL — Amid talk that he’s being hung out to dry by his political opponents, the head of SODEC, Jean-Guy Chaput, has been asked by the film and TV funding agency’s board to step down.

Chaput was thrust into the media spotlight in late May after Quebec ‘s auditor-general, Renaud Lachance, released a report accusing the SODEC executive of overspending and sloppy accounting.

Although Chaput had been aware of the report since April and says he has taken steps to rectify some of the problems it highlighted, Lachance’s public declaration that the SODEC head had ‘sumptuous’ tastes sparked a heated debate that went as far as the floor of the Quebec National Assembly.

Both Premier Jean Charest and his culture minister, Christine St-Pierre, said publicly that they had little faith in Chaput’s ability to head the funding agency. A visibly shaken Chaput then held a press conference to defend his record.

The SODEC board met on Friday to consider his future.

Chaput, who was not available for comment, is not without his supporters, however.

Montreal’s French-language daily La Presse devoted two full pages Saturday to a lengthy profile of him, and editorialist Yves Boisvert suggested Chaput is being persecuted for political reasons. (He was given the SODEC job by Minister Saint-Pierre’s predecessor, Line Beauchamps.) It was Saint-Pierre who asked the auditor to look into Chaput’s spending habits.

In the profile he is portrayed as a self-made man with expensive tastes but also as a visionary who recognizes talent and supports it. It was his decision to give $200,000 to Cannes wunderkind Xavier Dolan (I Killed My Mother) to help the 20-year-old director finish his film.

‘I think he’s had a bad wrap,’ said one veteran TV producer, speaking to Playback Daily on the condition of remaining anonymous. ‘SODEC is really important to the film and TV industry here. We need it.’