The Charbonneau Commision hearings heard from the former director-general of former mayor Gerald Tremblay's Union Montreal party Tuesday, who got crossed up by the commission's lawyers over his version of his relationship with party bagman Bernard Trepanier, aka Mr. Three Percent.

Ouellet repeated over and over again that he barely knew Trepanier, though lawyers later produced phone records that showed that Trepanier had phoned Ouellet nearly 70 times, and that one of the calls lasted almost 20 minutes.

Ouellet also told of how he wasn't aware of Trepanier's Mr. Three Percent nickname before he started hearing it in the media.

Trepanier earned the nickname after allegations surfaced that he had demanded three percent cuts off the top of municipal contracts, with the extra cash going right into Union Montreal's coffers.

Later, the former vice-president of the engineering firm Genivar, Francois Perreault, took the stand and also confirmed the existence of a 3 per cent system of kickbacks, and that Bernard Trepanier dictated which firms would have to ally themselves with other firms to get upcoming contracts.