In a tense atmosphere at the Charbonneau Commission Friday, former longtime PQ Minister Guy Chevrette hotly denied previous testimony made by construction executive Gilles Cloutier accusing him of taking bribes in return for green-lighting the building of a useless stretch of road.

Chevrette said that a little-used $18-million road linking two small towns in rural Quebec was a good plan approved by the bureaucrats, even if they now deny it.

The 31-km stretch of road between St. Donat and Lac Superieur runs through Mont Tremblant National Park and was built during the final years Guy Chevrette was in office.

Testifying before the Charbonneau inquiry into corruption on Friday, Chevrette said the road was built for valid reasons.

"It was there to stimulate economic development," said Chevrette, and he challenged the current government to extend it further.

Last year Gilles Cloutier told the Charbonneau commission that many people took part in money laundering, election-rigging, and bid-fixing schemes, the most prominent being Justice Michel Deziel and former PQ cabinet minister Guy Chevrette.

On the stand Friday Chevrette said he only met Cloutier once.

"I saw Gilles Cloutier only once, at a baseball game. But half the National Assembly was there," said Chevrette.

Cloutier, who represented the Roche construction firm, told the commission a year ago that he gave $25,000 to Chevrette through another man named Gilles Beaulieu.

Cloutier said that Beaulieu asked for $100,000 get access to Chevrette for the road project. Cloutier said that the other $75,000 was supplied by other Roche officials.

Chevrette categorically denied the story in his testimony Friday.

Cloutier, in his testimony, had said that Chevrette had planned to use the money for his travels.

Chevrette confirmed that he took a 100-day trip with his friend Beaulieu in 2002 after resigning as minister. He said that the trip was not planned during the same period that Beaulieu referred to.

Chevrette eventually resigned after being shuffled to a less-important post and then embarked upon a 100-day trip, the longest permissible for a minister.

The trip cost him $49,200 and a similar amount for the Beaulieus, testified Chevrette, who said that he paid for it partially with a $25,000 bonus payment that he received from the Parti Quebecois in November 2001, as a reward for serving 25 years in office.

And while he confessed that the road in question was the result of a political decision, Chevrette denied that there was any irregularity in the process which led the road to be built.

Chevrette also denied ever hosting Cloutier in his office and said that his agenda showed no such meeting. Chevrette also said that he never golfed with Cloutier and only saw him two or three times.

“I barely knew him,” he said, noting that he once asked a journalist to show him a photo of Cloutier because he wasn’t even sure who he was.

Chevrette confirmed that he attended a hockey game with members of the Desjardins family, whose company Asphatle Desjardins received a contract for the road in question. But he said there was no link between the contract and the hockey game.

Prosecutor Paul Crepeau and Judge France Charbonneau asked Chevrette if he ever took a trip paid for by construction entrepreneurs.

“It would surprise me if I did, I have no memory of that,” Chevrette testified in a tense moment of the hearings.

Chevrette also criticized the commission for making him wait a year to counter Cloutier’s accusations.

Charbonneau replied, “We asked you long ago to meet but each time our offer was turned down.”

Another witness, whose identity has yet to be revealed, will address the commission Monday.

-With a file from The Canadian Press