Quebec premier François Legault set to take centre stage at SAAQclic scandal inquiry

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This article was published 01/09/2025 (390 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MONTREAL – All eyes will be on Quebec Premier François Legault on Tuesday as he is set to testify at the public inquiry into the cost overrun scandal at the province’s auto insurance board.

The commission, overseen by Judge Denis Gallant, is examining how the creation of the online platform known as SAAQclic incurred cost overruns of at least $500 million.

“I was the one who launched a public inquiry, it’s important that Quebecers know exactly what happened,” Legault told reporters last week. 

“I certainly don’t like what I’ve been hearing from the beginning about the SAAQclic case … I think everyone involved must agree to testify and we must shed full light on this matter.”

Legault has steadfastly maintained he has nothing to hide and wasn’t aware of cost overruns until an auditor’s report this year. Legault, his chief of staff Martin Koskinen and Yves Ouellet, a former general secretary of the executive council, will take the stand.

Earlier this year Quebec’s auditor general revealed cost overruns of at least $500 million in the creation of the online platform, for a total cost of more than $1.1 billion. That ultimately triggered the commission of inquiry championed by Legault himself.

But testimony at the inquiry says that Legault’s office was reportedly informed of a risk of ballooning costs as early as 2020. And according to testimony Ouellet was reportedly notified in September 2022 of a $222 million shortfall in delivering the SAAQclic platform.

In early 2023, the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec botched the rollout of its new online platform, leading to major delays and long lineups at SAAQ branches, where Quebecers typically take road tests, register vehicles, and renew driver’s licences.

The inquiry, which has been sitting since April, has heard from several former members of the board of directors of the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), former internal auditors and other officials. 

In recent weeks, it has been fixed on politician and political staffers, and a number of senior ministers have been on the hot seat in recent weeks.

During her testimony, Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault was confronted with documents showing that her office had obtained information as early as June 2023 on cost overruns surrounding the SAAQclic platform. She told the inquiry she had no memory of the document.

Guilbault was later forced to admit she had been aware of the information after members of the inquiry pointed out that it had appeared on the agenda of a meeting she had with the SAAQ’s former president.

Guillbault became transport minister in 2022 after the Coalition Avenir Quebec’s landslide electoral victory in October.

Also presented during the hearing was a letter from Guilbault to Legault and Koskinen in December 2024 calling for a change to the SAAQ structure, calling the situation “intolerable.”

“Has anyone worried about the mess I’ve been cleaning up for the past two years because of the SAAQ? I don’t get that impression,” Guilbault wrote. She said the auto board president did not fit the profile for heading an organization with 4,000 staff “which is in perpetual crisis, and which affects 6.5 million Quebecers who have a driver’s licence.”

The president and CEO of the auto insurance board, Éric Ducharme, was reassigned in July.

Guilbault’s predecessor in transport, current Public Security Minister François Bonnardel, testified he’d been kept in the dark on costs.

“My bullshit index is pretty high, and I realize today that a few people have shamefully managed to provide inadequate information so that we are unable to see the true picture of the situation,” Bonnardel said.

He was critical of the board for not providing him with the true financial picture of the digital shift when he took office as minister in November 2018. He was left with erroneous document as early as December 2020 on the status of the project, with the figures provided excluding operating costs.

The gaffe-filled transition cost one longtime CAQ minister his job: Éric Caire stepped down as cybersecurity and digital technology minister amid heavy pressure to do so a week after the auditor’s report.

Caire testified he knew the provincial auto insurance board’s digital transition project was over budget in 2021, but didn’t realize just how bad the situation was. The information was “vague,” and he did not know the cost of the contract with the consortium or the total budget for the project.

Caire said he had not taken any specific measures to monitor costs or inquire about the budget increase, telling the inquiry it was not part of his role.

“It (the SAAQ) is an independent organization, it’s an organization that is governed by a board of directors. Does the minister for digital transformation monitor projects? Yes. But does budgetary responsibility fall to the board of directors? Most certainly,” he said.

The inquiry opened in April 2025. In June, Gallant’s inquiry was extended, with a final report now due by Dec. 15, 2025. 

The inquiry and its final report could be damaging for Legault’s government, with the results due out less than a year before the next provincial election due for October 2026.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 1, 2025.