The owner of a construction company in the Mauricie region of Quebec laid it all on the table this week at the Charbonneau inquiry into corruption in the construction industry.

Louis Marchand of Maskimo Construction said he thinks the law forbidding companies from making political donations is one of the biggest hypocrisies in the Quebec political system because parties don't abide by it.

He was very blunt in his testimony and said the relationship between companies and political parties is a vicious circle.

"It was pathetic to see the political parties pointing fingers at one another saying it's not us, it's you, it's the Liberals, it's the PQ, but it's all the same thing," said Marchand.

He testified that his company was solicited by every major party for donations and was even pressured directly by an MNA herself.

Marchand said it was common for engineering firms who were his clients but who also worked with the government at the time to call and pressure him to buy fundraising tickets.

He felt cornered and Maskimo did contribute in order to avoid any negative consequences.

Between 1998-2011 Maskimo employees donated close to $100,000 to all parties, mostly to the Liberals but Louis Marchand said every political party played the game.

"How many times did Pauline Marois denounce our industry? But she was part leader and she was at that event with 15 construction company entrepreneurs," said Marchand.

Marchand also told a story about Liberal MNA Julie Boulet, then a cabinet Minister, calling him in 2008 or 2009 after Marchand turned down a request from her political attaché earlier that day.

Louis Marchand said he felt pressured to buy $1,000-fundraising tickets, and said it was hard to say 'no' when Boulet said she was very disappointed to hear he wouldn't be donating.

However Marchand stood firm and told Boulet he was unhappy public contracts were being given to companies without being put out to tender.

Marchand says around that time he stopped all political donations, no longer wanting his company to be caught up in the financing system.

He said that soon after pulling the plug on donations, the government, around 2009, stopped awarding Maskimo tariffed contracts, which are given to companies without going to competitive bidding because they are deemed too small to attract competition, or because they are required to be finished quickly, such as before the onset of winter.

Liberal Party lawyer Felix Rheaume challenged that Marchand's account by asserting that the reason Maskimo stopped receiving tarriffed contracts was because the government started giving out fewer of them around that same time.

Marchand also address a dispute over a road to a quarry in La Tuque, which led Maskimo to file a $8.1 million lawsuit against the Minister of Transportation.

Estelle Tremblay, lawyer for the Parti Quebecois, also took exception to Marchand's account and managed to get him to concede that his issues with government contracts were less pronounced between 1996 and 2002, years that the PQ was in power.

Tremblay, to some surprise, did not question Marchand about his claims about attending a cocktail fundraiser for Pauline Marois along with 15 other construction entrepreneurs.

Marchand repeatedly used his platform to urge mandatory bidding on public contracts, except when it is impossible. That system saves taxpayer money, as opposed to the much-costlier tariffed contract system, he argued. "The less we rely on politicians, the more value we get for our tax dollars," he said at the end of his testimony.

Stash of cash

Karen Duhamel then took the stand with some equally shocking testimony about events which she claimed happened when she worked as a junior engineer for the Genivar firm

Duhamel’s tasks included taking inventory of supplies at the work site on Highway 40 between Sources and the 520, a stretch of road built in 2003. The Genivar-Tecsult firm was supervising work by the Grand Travaux Soter construction company.

She complained that the figures she reported in her inventory reports were not the same as what appeared in the company's official reports. She said that she declined to change her numbers when asked.

She also described an incident in which a junior engineer at Grand Travaux Soter brought an impressive pile of cash to the the offices of her boss Noubar Semerjian, who was the main supervisor. She said that she also saw brown envelopes but did not know what was inside.

Duhamel told the commission that she then reported the incident to her managers who then told her to think it over before making a complaint. She also filed a complaint to the Order of Engineers where she was told that her complaint could not advance without proof.

Duhamel said that she had trouble finding work afterwards, apparently because Genivar declined to give her good references.

Liberal MNA Julie Boulet is expected to testify Thursday afternoon.