SAAQclic: ex-IT boss ‘bulls-itted' senior management

CTV News

27-05-2025

Judge Denis Gallant of the Commission d'enquête sur la gestion de la modernisation des systèmes informatiques de la Société de l'assurance automobile (SAAQ) awaits the start of the public inquiry into the failure of the SAAQclic platform in Montreal on Thursday, April 24, 2025. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)
Senior management at the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) was 'bullshitted' by its IT boss as he defended an extra $222 million for the deployment of the SAAQclic platform, according to a former internal auditor.
The former director of the SAAQ's internal audit department, Daniel Pelletier, continued his testimony on Tuesday before the Gallant commission, which is investigating the failures of the provincial Crown corporation.
Pelletier revealed that the office of then Transport Minister François Bonnardel was informed in June 2022 of future cost overruns of $222 million.
Newly appointed CEO of the SAAQ, Denis Marsolais, called a meeting with a representative of the minister's office to announce the extra cost, which represented 50 per cent of the cost of the initial contract with suppliers. The SAAQ's vice-president of information technology at the time, Karl Malenfant, was also present.
According to Pelletier, the meeting did not go well. 'Things got out of hand in the minister's office,' he said.
Pelletier said that he had warned Marsolais that presenting such an extra would not go down well in the minister's office and that 'it was going to be hot,' since the latter believes that the contract with the consortium is capped at $458 million, as reported to him by SAAQ senior management, Pelletier asserts.
Pelletier questioned the justifications put forward by Malenfant, who is in charge of the SAAQclic project, to defend the additional expenses to the contract.
In his view, the suggested additions did not actually exist.
Pelletier recounted what he had said to Marsolais following his meeting with the minister's office: 'Denis, you're being bullshitted' by Karl Malenfant. 'I said it to him like that. A sort of cry from the heart," Pelletier told Commissioner Denis Gallant.
Marsolais lost his job in April 2023 in the wake of the failed rollout of SAAQclic, which had caused huge lineups outside branches. The SAAQ's technological modernization project could cost a minimum of more than $1.1 billion by 2027, or $500 million more than expected, according to the Auditor General.
A modified final bid
The final offer from the firms responsible for developing the SAAQclic platform was already raising concerns a few weeks before it was signed.
The selection committee for the call for tenders suggested revising or clarifying certain points in the contract before it was signed with the LGS-IBM-SAP alliance in March 2017.
Among the concerns was the number of hours for technology integration, which had been reduced by 730,000 compared with the initial bid. Three years later, the consortium calculated that the project would ultimately require 2 million hours rather than 877,000.
'Somewhere in 2020, we were in the process of discussing the possibility of handing over nearly a million more,' recalled Pelletier.
In 2017, Pelletier's team had not been informed of the changes made. However, while monitoring the tendering process, the former director remembers that some members of the selection committee were 'surprised' when they discovered the content of the second bid.
The consultants' 'very high' hourly rate 'for the additional work reserve' was also a point to be checked against the initial proposal. It rose from $89 to $256. 'For the same work, the competitor proposed an hourly rate of $151,' the selection committee said.
The committee also pointed out that the implementation of services for the delivery of permits and registrations on the platform would be done 'without simulation.'
'This implied that there would be no prior simulations or tests. We now understand that it would certainly have been useful,' Pelletier told Commissioner Gallant.
Pelletier is due to be cross-examined on Wednesday morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 27, 2025.
By Frédéric Lacroix-Couture, The Canadian Press