SAAQclic scandal: Quebec ministers — and maybe Legault — may testify in pivotal month for CAQ

Montreal Gazette

2 days ago

Quebec Politics
By
After months of bombshell revelations, the public inquiry into the $500-million SAAQclic scandal is entering a critical phase, with several ministers — and possibly Quebec Premier François Legault — among those who may be called to testify.
Legault, a trained accountant and former business executive, rose to power vowing to fight corruption and rein in Liberal-era excesses.
Now, as he readies a re-election bid in the face of dismal poll numbers, his government is mired in its most damaging scandal — a fiasco the opposition says reeks of corruption. The fallout has already led to the resignation of a key minister.
With the inquiry resuming Monday after a summer break, the next four weeks could prove pivotal for Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec.
What's SAAQclic, and what's the scandal?
SAAQclic is the glitch-plagued digital modernization of Quebec's auto-insurance board.
The Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) upgraded its computer systems to enable online transactions and appointment bookings for driver's licences and vehicle registrations.
Not only was the project delayed and over-budget, but when it launched in February 2023, the system repeatedly crashed, causing long waits and widespread frustration at SAAQ offices.
The project is expected to cost $1.1 billion, $500 million more than the original price.
Quebec's auditor general was scathing in a report, citing poor planning, conflicts of interest and manipulated reports. The Unité permanente anticorruption (UPAC) raided SAAQ headquarters in June as part of its investigation.
Who knew what when?
We don't know yet.
A former head of the SAAQ has testified that he alerted Legault's onetime right-hand man, Yves Ouellet, of major cost overruns in September 2022, amid the last Quebec election campaign.
At the time, Ouellet was Quebec's highest-ranking public servant, reporting directly to Legault.
Liberal MNA Monsef Derraji has accused the SAAQ's board of withholding information about spiralling costs to shield the CAQ during the election.
Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has called the affair 'one of the biggest political scandals in Quebec history.' He said there was 'clearly a corruption issue' in the SAAQclic debacle.
Who are the big names expected to testify?
Conflicting accounts have emerged about how much the government knew about the problems unfolding behind the scenes.
In a recent decree, the government officially lifted the confidentiality obligations of several top CAQ elected officials to allow them to testify and provide documents to the inquiry.
The decree covers the premier, ministers of transport, cybersecurity and digital affairs, as well as finance and the president of the Treasury Board. Also covered are former ministers and cabinet staff dating back to 2012.
Aside from Legault, other senior elected officials to watch for are Éric Caire, who resigned as cybersecurity minister due to the scandal, as well as Geneviève Guilbault and François Bonnardel (the current and former transport ministers, respectively). On Wednesday, Guilbault confirmed she was asked to testify next week, and Bonnardel is also expected to appear.
As president of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel oversees government spending and could be a crucial witness.
The Liberals have questioned LeBel's ties to Denis Gallant, the municipal court judge leading the inquiry. LeBel served as chief prosecutor at the Charbonneau corruption inquiry, where Gallant was a prosecutor.
The inquiry, which must submit findings by Dec. 15, says it will hold another seven to eight weeks of public hearings. Members of the National Assembly are to be called to testify between Aug. 18 and Sept. 12 — just ahead of the legislature's return on Sept. 16.
What has the inquiry heard so far?
Witnesses at the inquiry have painted a troubling picture — one of lax oversight, pushback against financial scrutiny, and indifference to soaring costs.
The consortium behind the project — LGS (an IBM subsidiary) and SAP — signed nearly 1,900 side contracts outside the main agreement. A former financial controller testified that the consortium failed to apply the required 10 per cent holdback on fees, a safeguard meant to protect the SAAQ in case of future problems with the work.
The consortium 'was hungry and wanted to be very well-fed from SAAQ funds,' he testified, with suppliers effectively allowed to bill the SAAQ a second time to fix their own mistakes.
An internal auditor told the inquiry that the hourly rate charged by external employees working on the project jumped from $82 to $350 per hour, apparently without justification.
A project manager admitted to manipulating a call for tenders to avoid scrutiny by the Autorité des marchés financiers, which is responsible for ensuring transparency and integrity in public contracting.
The inquiry heard that three SAAQ auditors quit in 2024 due to the lack of interest in their work by then-CEO Éric Ducharme. One auditor testified that Ducharme wanted the auditors to stop making waves.
In the wake of that testimony, the CAQ government removed Ducharme as CEO. He was the second CEO to have been appointed and then dismissed by the Legault government.
Some senior officials at the SAAQ have downplayed the runaway costs in their testimony.
'Quebecers won't be penalized that much' by the fiasco, a former SAAQ board member testified, suggesting a small increase in fees for driver's licenses could compensate for the escalating price.
Later, a former SAAQ president said the SAAQ is so large it can absorb extra costs 'without stopping the Earth from spinning.' He said cost overruns are 'inevitable — you have to live with it.'
Announced in March, the inquiry has heard from 45 witnesses. It has also met with more than 100 others and gathered more than 100,000 documents from the SAAQ and five ministries.
The ministries are: Finance; Treasury Board; Cybersecurity and Digital Technology; Transport; the Executive Council. The latter is the ministry that supports the premier and his cabinet.
Is the scandal hurting the CAQ politically?
A May Léger poll found that most Quebecers want ministers responsible for SAAQclic held more accountable and say the fiasco has shaken their confidence in the government's ability to manage projects.
With the next election scheduled for October 2026, surveys place the CAQ in third, behind the Parti Québécois and the Liberals. A recent projection by poll aggregator QC125.com suggests the CAQ would not win a single seat if the vote were held today.
The political fallout remains evident as new controversies emerge.
Critics were quick to draw comparisons after the Legault government announced $570 million in school funding cuts in June — an amount comparable to SAAQclic budget excesses.
The CAQ government has stressed that the project began under former Liberal premier Philippe Couillard. The SAAQ announced its plan in 2015 and signed the contract in March 2017, under the Liberals.
However, most of the work — and the resulting excess spending — occurred after the CAQ took office in October 2018.