MONTREAL – A former Parti Quebecois transport minister is defending a decision in the early 2000s to build a rarely used road in rural Quebec that cost $20 million.

Guy Chevrette is back on the stand today at Quebec’s corruption inquiry and is admitting a decision to build the road north of Montreal was strictly a political one.

There was already a road in place between St-Donat and Lac-Superieur, and Transport Department officials have testified they didn’t think the new one was a priority.

Chevrette says he pushed ahead with the 31-kilometre road in 2001 to help a region facing economic hardships.

Chevrette was transport minister between 1998 and 2002.

He denied there were any irregularities in the tendering process and said he was never informed by department bureaucrats the road should not be built.

Chevrette defended the project, saying it was the government’s prerogative to invest in the project and that 3,000 people in one of the communities signed a petition in favour of it.

The fiery politician also continued to take shots at Gilles Cloutier, a retired political organizer and engineering executive who previously testified that Chevrette was involved in shady practices.

Chevrette has called Cloutier’s testimony a pack of lies and, on Friday, said he hardly knew Cloutier, continuously referring to him as “your friend” when addressing the inquiry counsel.

“What Cloutier says is not true, it’s another lie and they’re accumulating,” Chevrette said.