DRUMMONDVILLE, QUE.—A new report has dropped like a bombshell on the Quebec election campaign, alleging that Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois’ millionaire husband may have raised tens of thousands in political donations for his wife that were collected illegally.

Radio-Canada reported Monday evening that Claude Blanchet, a successful Quebec businessman, solicited a total of $30,000 in donations from leaders of two engineering firms on behalf of Marois. He reportedly received a total of $25,000 in 2007 from one firm to help finance Marois’ PQ leadership campaign as well as $5,000 from a second firm to help fund the 2008 general election.

Illegal political financing schemes carried out by Quebec construction firms seeking contracts or influence from municipal and provincial political parties have been a central issue in the , a public inquiry into corruption in Quebec.

The maximum amount that an individual could contribute to a political party had been $3,000 until Marois’s PQ came to power in 2012. The party passed a law limiting political donations to $100, making it much more difficult to carry out so-called prêt–noms scheme, where employees of a company allow the firm to make donations using their name.

The Star has not been able to independently verify the Radio-Canada report and there is no evidence that Blanchet knew about an apparent political financing scheme that, if true, would be a clear violation of the province’s election laws. Both Blanchet and Marois firmly denied the allegations.

“The Parti Québécois has always rigorously respected the law on financing for political parties and my husband has as well,” she said upon her arrival at a campaign rally in Drummondville.

“My husband has done fundraising for the Parti Québécois on occasion and has always respected the rules around financing. I completely deny the report and my husband denies it as well.”

The Radio-Canada report cites two unnamed sources who held leading positions in Quebec engineering firms. The broadcaster also published an affidavit from one of those individual who claimed Blanchet asked him to raise $25,000 for Marois’s leadership campaign.

The person, whose name was removed from the document to protect his identity, claimed that he handed a series of $3,000 cheques to Blanchet a few weeks later in his office.

“The principal reason for my involvement . . . was to have privileged access to Madame Pauline Marois,” the individual claimed in the affidavit.

Two people who worked for that same engineering firm and were listed as Marois donors in 2007 told Radio-Canada that they were asked by their employers to write a $3,000 cheque and that they were reimbursed by their employer.

An analysis of donations to Marois’s 2007 leadership campaign completed in 2013 by the left-wing sovereigntist party Québec Solidaire showed that about $80,000 of the $123,000 in donations the PQ leader received came from engineering firms. According to the analysis, $25,000 came from the Montreal engineering firm Axor.

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At the time, Québec Solidaire co-leader Amir Khadir said political parties had been “willfully blind” to the problem.

Marois cast doubt on the report, noting that while Radio-Canada obtained a signed affidavit from one of its witnesses, the person would not divulge their name or the company for which they worked.

“An anonymous affidavit several days before an election — it doesn’t smell right.”