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Mr. Cadotte, who was on vacation when the news came in, said he uncorked a bottle of wine to celebrate, and Ipex revved up production to meet short-term orders expected to be worth up to $800,000.

Then Mr. Milioto called him to another meeting in the fall of 2006. After some small talk, he cut to the chase.

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“Mr. Cadotte, things are going well, it’s rolling. There’s just one thing that you need to know,” he said, according to Mr. Cadotte’s testimony.

“Because of the acceptance of your product by the city of Montreal, I’ve got some people to compensate.” Mr. Milioto said he needed $150,000 in cash to pay three unnamed city of Montreal officials “who did the work to get us here.”

Mr. Cadotte testified it was the second time in his 23 years as sales director he had been asked for a kickback. The first time was about 10 years earlier, when a private engineer said Ipex could be guaranteed of winning a municipal contract in the Laurentians if it paid a bribe.

If we don’t get on board, if we don’t give the money, we know that’s the end

The answer had been no back then, and Mr. Cadotte was certain it would be no again.

“We don’t get involved in projects where we make profits on the back of taxpayers,” he told the commission, headed by Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau.

After running Mr. Milioto’s demand by his superiors, Mr. Cadotte returned to give him the news: “Ipex doesn’t work that way.”

He figured Ipex was finished in Montreal. “If we don’t get on board, if we don’t give the money, we know that’s the end,” he testified. And to this day, Ipex has not been chosen to provide pipe for Montreal aqueduct projects, even though it sells its products to municipalities across eastern Canada.