Gilles Surprenant sought to rehabilitate his image a little as he took the stand for a fourth day of grilling before the Charbonneau Commission.

He insisted it was the construction companies working within a system of collusion that were fixing contracts.

He said the contracts were already fixed when they reached him and that he was just an insurance policy making sure those fixed contracts were approved and that they went to the right companies at the right cost.

At one point Surprenant even told the commission that he wasn't bad, that he was a civil servant who was corrupted.

He again indicated the corruption and collusion in the city of Montreal went beyond sewers; that it was generally known that collusion existed also in the construction of sidewalks and the paving of streets.