Quebec replaces digital technology minister who resigned over auto board scandal

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/02/2025 (564 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

QUÉBEC – Quebec Premier François Legault replaced his cybersecurity and digital technology minister Friday after a scandal with the auto insurance board’s online platform forced the resignation of Éric Caire.

Legault named backbencher Gilles Bélanger as Caire’s replacement, after an explosive report by the province’s auditor general last week revealed cost overruns of at least $500 million in the creation of the online platform known as SAAQclic.

Bélanger, first elected in the Orford riding in 2018, has been legislature assistant to Legault and to Finance Minister Eric Girard. Notably, after the Coalition Avenir Québec won its first mandate in 2018, Bélanger was responsible for the deployment of high-speed internet in rural areas.

“He’s a seasoned businessman,” Legault told reporters Friday after Bélanger was sworn in at the office of Lt-Gov. Manon Jeannotte.

Bélanger said he was eager to take on the new role. “(Legault) is giving me a lot of responsibility … it’s really exciting … there are a number files related to information technology, so I’m going to start by familiarizing myself with those files.”

Caire resigned on Thursday, saying he had “nothing to reproach myself for, apart from not having been suspicious enough,” but he also concluded that he had become a distraction to the government. 

While Caire maintains that he had been kept in the dark about the cost overruns, news reports Thursday alleged Caire had helped the auto insurance board hide the rising cost from the public. Caire denied the reports.

The auditor general found that the auto insurance board chose to mask $222 million in cost overruns to avoid “media and political risk.” The botched 2023 rollout of the online platform led to major delays and long lineups at insurance board branches, where Quebecers take road tests, register vehicles, and access other services.

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Legault called Caire’s decision to resign “honourable” and said his government would “get to the bottom of it.”

“We’ve had a report from the auditor general saying that (the auto insurance board) executives didn’t inform the ministers. There are still all kinds of questions. I’m going to be very clear with Quebecers: there will be zero tolerance. I want to know everything that happened in this case,” he said. 

However, opposition parties weren’t quelled by the resignation, and called for a public inquiry into how the platform’s cost ballooned to more than $1.1 billion. The opposition has also said the debacle raises questions about Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault and her predecessor François Bonnardel, now public security minister. Both held the transport portfolio during the period of cost overruns, and both have said they were unaware off the extent of the online platform’s problems and that information was kept from them. 

Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters in Montreal Friday that corruption may have played a part in the exorbitant costs and that the government was likely being overcharged in its “disastrous deployment” of the platform.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 28, 2025.