Quebec auto board officials lied for years to hide costs of botched digital launch, commission finds
Top officials at Quebec's automobile insurance board, known as the SAAQ, deliberately lied to the provincial government for years to conceal colossal cost overruns and issues with its digital transition, according to a report tabled by Judge Denis Gallant in Quebec City Monday. Gallant's 566-page report found the digital transition project was "too much, too big, too fast" and that there weren't enough checks and balances in place to keep the project in line. "The Commission finds that, for much of the [digital transformation] program’s duration, the SAAQ lied to parliamentarians, ministers and their staff about the program’s implementation," the report says. In his speech as he tabled the report Monday, Gallant said it should be the norm for people in public service to be "transparent and honest," but that wasn't the case here.Gallant's report comes after hearing months of testimony and analyzing hundreds of thousands of documents in the public inquiry into the launch of SAAQclic, which concluded late last year. The website’s launch was fumbled, leaving many Quebecers waiting in long lineups in the cold because of issues renewing their drivers' licences or accessing their accounts when the online platform first came out in 2023.An auditor general's report last year revealed the digital transformation is at least $500 million over budget — expected to cost up to $1.1 billion — and how it wasn’t properly tested before its launch.Gallant's report largely echos the findings of that earlier report, but it also says top officials at the SAAQ botched the transition and concealed cost overruns from elected officials. It does not put the blame on any single person and government officials go largely unscathed, though the report does suggest the premier's office and former transport minister Geneviève Guilbault may have been made aware of at least part of the cost overruns as early as 2023 — and not last year, as they have claimed. "Certain government officials obtained, at some moments, reliable information on the rollout of the program," Gallant said.Government was never informed, Legault maintainsThe government is also looking into taking legal action against SAAQ officials, he said.In a news conference following the tabling of the report, Quebec Premier François Legault says it's clear his government had no knowledge of the situation and that it was SAAQ officials that misled both the government and taxpayers. He also stressed the issues began when the project was first conceived — and when it was still the Quebec Liberals who were in office. "I am not saying the government was perfect. We could have been more mistrusting, we could have asked more questions," said Legault. "But one thing is clear now ... We can clearly see my government was never aware that the SAAQclic project had a revised cost of $1.1 billion." Legault said the highest estimate he and his ministers were ever given prior to last year was $682 million. Officials called outKarl Malenfant, the former vice-president of digital experience and an architect of the SAAQ's digital transformation project, was given too much power over the file, according to Gallant's report. "Many key positions ... were held by a single person, Karl Malenfant, which is incompatible with a healthy control environment," the report concludes. "The program’s control plan was unable to counterbalance his strong personality preventing many bodies within the SAAQ to fully perform their oversight and control mandates." Malenfant held a news conference last week to give his version of events. He asserted he was a victim of a smear campaign.He also defended the SAAQclic project, saying it actually has some of the lowest cost overruns compared to previous digital transition projects and that the situation was blown out of proportion.The SAAQ also had reduced regulatory oversight that allowed it to complete the project "at any cost," the report says, and allowed information to be hidden from internal auditors. The report concludes that the SAAQ continued to provide the Quebec government with misleading and false information up until the start of 2023, when Éric Ducharme took over as the SAAQ's CEO. The falsehoods began, the report says, from the very outset of the digital tranformation project, called CASA, in 2015. It says the SAAQ gave an underestimated version of the costs to the Treasury Board when it was time to issue the call for tenders for the project. In 2021, then transportation minister François Bonnardel was finally given the budget for the CASA project. But, the report says, he was not given the original estimate and therefore was unaware that that budget was already $300 million more than what it was supposed to be. At that same point, Éric Caire, who was cybersecurity minister at the time, was not given information about the budget when the SAAQ gave him an update on the project, the report says. Both he and Bonnardel were reassured by SAAQ officials the project was on track, Gallant concludes.Caire stepped down as cybersecurity minister shortly after the auditor general's report was released last year. As for Legault, he had not so much as heard of the CASA project before the SAAQclic crisis broke in 2023, despite the amplitude of the project, the report concludes. Legault's office and former Guilbault were made aware of some of the cost overruns later that same year.WATCH | Who's in charge in Quebec?:Two former members of Quebec Premier François Legault’s cabinet are running to take over the province’s leadership. But with legislation in process around defining issues for the party, who’s steering the government ship? Digital transformation problematicGallant concludes his report with 26 recommendations. Chief among them is the creation of a centralized body to control the government's digital transformation projects. According to the report, one of the main issues with the SAAQclic rollout was a lack of digital transformation expertise in existing Quebec government bodies, including the department of cybersecurity and digital technologies.Gallant also recommends tightening governance rules for state-owned enterprises like the SAAQ and enhancing the power of watchdogs, including the Autorité des marchés publics.
