A former VP of a well-known engineering firm says every political party in Quebec chased after his company for political donations.

Andre Coté, who used to an executive with Roche, said politicians continually approached engineering companies for money, and not the other way around.

"In every region there is a Liberal party, a Parti Quebecois, municipal parties, and federal parties that are after us for fundraising," said Coté.

He continued his testimony on Friday by explaining the cosy relationship between Roche and politicians in Quebec City, saying that Sam Hamad used office space at the engineering firm for his election campaign in 2008.

Hamad was Minister of Employment and Social Security at the time, has been Minister of Transportation, and is currently Minister of Labour.

Coté told the commission how executives from Roche met once a year to have a discussion about how much money they would need to meet all these requests, which were often around $80,000 to $90,000 per year.

The company would reimburse employees for these donations to political parties, and Coté said they knew it was illegal and they were uncomfortable with it, but they were more fearful about what would happen if they didn't contribute than if they continued contributing.

"We didn't have a choice," said Coté. "The president said listen it's not like we have a choice, then. Mr. Martel, what he used to say, since he was more often in Montreal, was that what we're giving, and I'll repeat his expression, I remember he said "it's peanuts what we're giving compared to other companies in the Montreal region in terms of political contributions. So we have to continue.' We finally decided OK let's continue."

Friday morning the commission also examined emails from the treasurer of a Parti Quebecois riding association.

During a byelection the PQ, in an effort to get candidate Paul Crete elected, the treasurer sent a letter to Roche with a formal request for financing. This was followed up by a second strongly-worded message from the treasurer's brother, Steve Boulianne, who included a list of other companies that had made donations.

Documents show that Roche made donations to not just Crete, but a lengthy list of well-known politicians such as Denis Coderre, Christian Paradis, Yves Bolduc and Pauline Marois.

However there are no indications that the recipients of the donations knew about the unlawful contributions.