SAAQclic: cost estimates presented to Quebec government were half than initial calculation
Posted June 5, 2025 3:17 pm.
Last Updated June 5, 2025 3:23 pm.
The Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) presented the government with cost estimates at half of those it had calculated a few months earlier for the purchase of the software used, among other things, to develop SAAQclic.
Documents presented to the Gallant Commission over the past two days have outlined preliminary cost estimates for the acquisition of a software package (ERP).
Projections dating back to December 2014 suggested a cost of approximately $278 million.
In April 2015, the SAAQ filed a request with the Treasury Board seeking special terms and conditions for the tendering process.
The estimate put forward for the purchase of an ERP was $125 million. The company also estimated the cost to its internal resources at $75 million.
These various estimates were submitted Thursday morning to Alain Dubé, a former SAAQ executive. He was involved in the tendering process and the government corporation’s positioning toward an ERP.
Asked about these figures, Dubé stated that he did not know what explains the discrepancy between the projections at the end of 2014 and those of spring 2015. At the time, he was the SAAQ’s General Manager of Large-Scale IT Projects, under Karl Malenfant’s Vice-President of Information Technology.
“You’re number two. You’re responsible for the mandate. We have a specific contractual process approved by the Treasury Board, which includes the project estimate, and you don’t know how it was established?” asked Alexandre Thériault-Marois, a commission attorney.
Asked about these figures, Dubé stated that he had not participated in drafting the request submitted to the Treasury Board, but that this document “certainly” passed through Malenfant’s hands.
It should be noted that the SAAQ’s technological modernization project could cost at least $1.1 billion by 2027, or $500 million more than expected, the Auditor General’s (AG) calcultations.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
