A Montreal municipal official was offered prostitutes' services as a gift from construction companies, he testified Tuesday at Quebec's corruption inquiry.
The suspended Montreal engineer said he received numerous bottles of wine, fancy dinners and hockey tickets - and he added that some companies' generosity sometimes got a little more personal.
Gilles Vézina said he was offered the services of an escort on at least two occasions by two construction bosses in the late 1980s or early 1990s.
Vézina said the offers came after dinner with businessmen, who then invited him to take an escort into a hotel room to end the night.
He testified that he accepted the wine, dinners and hockey tickets - but declined the offer of prostitutes.
"I told them it didn't interest me," said Vézina, who was recently married at the time. "I wasn't surprised [by the offer], but it didn't interest me."
Vézina said he didn't know if other colleagues accepted the offer. He repeated that despite accepting other gifts, he was unaware of a cartel-like structure that existed in Montreal, helped along by colleagues who were on the take.
He said he knew nothing of the system where fellow city employees have admitted to pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks over the years.
Gilles Surpenant and Luc Leclerc, two retired Montreal officials, have admitted to accepting all sorts of kickbacks and gifts in exchange for helping to fix contracts.
Vézina is still working for the city, although he is under suspension. He said he learned of the kickbacks while hearing the two men testify in front of Quebec's inquiry over the past few weeks.
On Monday, Vézina admitted that he had a chummy relationship with Mafia-linked contractors - having attended a birthday party for construction mogul Frank Catania and the marriage of a daughter of construction boss Nicolo Milioto, where he gave a $300 present.
He said receiving the gifts didn't influence his decisions.
Vézina, who was Leclerc's superior, was in charge of assigning Leclerc to different project.
Vézina was suspended by the city after his name came up in testimony during the corruption inquiry. The Charbonneau commission has spent the past several weeks exposing cosy ties between the Italian Mafia, construction companies, and corrupt municipal officials.
Gérald Tremblay and Gilles Vaillancourt, the mayors of Montreal and Laval, respectively, both resigned last week.
