Frank Zampino, former Montreal politician, testifies in his own defence at corruption trial

The former head of Montreal's executive committee, Frank Zampino, testified in his own defence Thursday at his trial on municipal corruption charges and denied any involvement in a municipal contract bid-rigging scheme.

Zampino was second-in-command to former mayor Gérald Tremblay from 2001 to 2008.

The prosecution alleges Zampino put in place a system allowing 13 engineering firms to share 34 public contracts with a total value of $160 million between 2004 and 2009.

In return, the engineering firms would allegedly make a donation of three per cent of the value of each contract to Zampino's party, Union Montreal, as well as an initial donation — sort of like an entry fee to participate in the scheme — ranging from $50,000 to $200,000.

"Your honour, I have never participated in any form of collusion or bid-rigging scheme in any way or any circumstance," Zampino testified.

"I have never orchestrated any such scheme. I have never fixed the outcome of any public tender. I have never authorized or given a mandate to anyone to further facilitate any such system," he said.

Zampino said the first time he learned of the alleged contract-sharing scheme was when it came up during testimony at the Charbonneau commission in 2013.

He did admit to taking several meetings with heads of engineering firms during his time as head of the executive committee.

"Sometimes there were blockages on their files or delays in the timetables and they would find they don't get sufficient answers from bureaucrats so they want to push things up the ladder," Zampino testified.

"It's part of our job as elected officials to meet with individuals who want to meet with us," he said.

He said those meetings sometimes took place in his office at city hall, or sometimes over lunch.

Zampino also testified that he and other members of the city's executive committee regularly attended Montreal Canadiens games and concerts at the Bell Centre in private boxes at the invitation of engineering firms and other businesses.

"To my knowledge, no one ever paid for those tickets. They're generally purchased by the different companies that invited us," Zampino said.

"I was never asked to refund and I never offered. This was a practice that was in force for many years," he said.

Four other people are also facing charges: former director of public works for the city, Robert Marcil, and the heads of three engineering firms, Kazimierz Olechnowicz, Bernard Poulin and Normand Brousseau.

A previous witness for the prosecution, Michel Lalonde, the former head of the Groupe Séguin engineering firm, testified in March that it was widely known during the Tremblay administration that Zampino was "the person to see" in order to obtain lucrative contracts in Montreal.

This is the second trial for Zampino and his co-accused after he was arrested in 2017.

The judge in the first trial ordered a stay of proceedings after determining that wiretap evidence gathered by investigators — including recordings of Zampino and his co-accused talking with their lawyers — was unconstitutional.

That decision was appealed to the Quebec Court of Appeal, which concluded that even though the wiretap evidence was indeed unconstitutional, it was not enough to justify a stay of proceedings and that a new trial should be held without using the wiretap evidence.

That decision was appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which last year refused to hear the case, leading to this new trial which began in February.