Coffee machine change used to pay Laval’s ruling party: former engineering boss

MONTREAL – A retired engineering vice-president says his company was able to pay its cut to a Laval political party using the money from coffee machines in the office.

Lucien Dupuis, a former vice-president at Cima+, testified Wednesday at Quebec’s corruption inquiry the money needed to pay Laval’s ruling PRO des Lavallois party was collected in part through four or five coffee machines located around the office.

Dupuis testified the machines brought in about $100 a day, roughly $500 a week and as much as $25,000 a year in cash.

Dupuis said they’d been paying the political party since 1996.

Several witnesses were heard on Wednesday as the inquiry winds its way towards a summer break, scheduled to begin next week.

The inquiry is focused on Laval, Que., a city just north of Montreal.

The Quebec government placed the city under trusteeship after revelations that nearly every sitting city councillor engaged in illegal party financing.

Its longtime former mayor, Gilles Vaillancourt, was among 37 people arrested and charged in a massive corruption investigation.

Vaillancourt was formally charged with a dozen corruption-related charges, including two counts of gangsterism. The ex-mayor has said he will fight to restore his reputation.