SAAQclic scandal: Éric Ducharme testifies; police to have easier time obtaining documents
Posted August 28, 2025 4:42 pm.
Last Updated August 28, 2025 6:06 pm.
A former CEO of the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), Éric Ducharme, was not alarmed in 2020 by the difficulties encountered by SAAQclic when he was a senior official at the Treasury Board.
Ducharme began his testimony Thursday before the Gallant Commission, which is examining the SAAQ’s failed digital shift.
Before taking the helm of the Crown corporation, Ducharme was Secretary of the Treasury Board from 2018 to 2023. When he was informed of a postponement of the SAAQclic rollout schedule, Ducharme was not worried.
After a meeting with then-CEO Nathalie Tremblay in October 2020, “the level of concern was not very high,” Ducharme testified.
“Yes, there are issues. But I think Nathalie Tremblay was in control of the files. … We have control of the project. Overruns, I repeat, we’re in a pandemic, there isn’t a single project without a problem,” Ducharme recounted.
Although he was aware of the cost of the contract with the consortium, Ducharme said he was only informed of the total project bill when he started at the SAAQ in April 2023.
It was also only when he took over as SAAQ director that he said he learned of the existence of an additional $45.7 million in the contract, signed in the fall of 2022.
“Were you surprised?” asked the commission’s attorney, Mélanie Tremblay.
“Yes. I was surprised by many things,” said Ducharme, who was dismissed by the government last July.
In May 2023, he received a letter from LGS. The firm was demanding an unpaid amount of $28.5 million from the Crown corporation, notably for support and maintenance services. This stung Ducharme, who responded that the platform was still experiencing numerous problems two months after its launch.
Discussions then began between the two parties, which ended with the conclusion of a second “amendment,” another additional cost to the contract.
“That’s when I understood everything,” Ducharme testified to the commission. “The contract money had been spent.”
The $458 million, 10-year contract was to include the development of the SAAQclic platform, as well as years of maintenance and operation after delivery.
“You buy a vehicle, and we had planned for years to put gas in, change the brakes, and buy tires. That was the contract. Now, I had the vehicle, but I only had three wheels, and I had spent all my money,” Ducharme said.
“I had even spent more than my $458 million because an amendment was signed in the fall of 2022,” he explained.
The second amendment, amounting to $68.9 million, was signed in the summer of 2023.
Legault calls on SAAQ to cooperate
Meanwhile the SAAQ is going to make it easier for police to obtain documents in their investigation into hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns at the state-owned corporation, Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault said Thursday.
In a post on X, Guilbault said the auto board would “adjust exchange and collaboration mechanisms” so that anti-corruption police can more quickly receive the documents they seized.
“It’s essential that it fully co-operates with the police investigation. That is what Quebecers expect,” she wrote.
The auto board had allegedly refused to make documents available to police on grounds of attorney-client privilege, La Presse first reported Thursday.
That prompted a harsh reaction from Quebec Premier François Legault, who responded by publicly demanding it reverse course. “What we learned this morning is unacceptable,” the premier wrote earlier Thursday in a post on X. “Quebecers must be confident that the whole truth will come to light.”
The corporation has been mired in controversy for months, after Quebec’s auditor general found that its new online platform SAAQclic was expected to cost $500 million more than expected. The scandal is now the subject of a public inquiry.
The platform’s launch in early 2023 was mired in problems, leading to major delays and long lineups at Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec branches, where Quebecers take road tests, register vehicles, and renew driver’s licences.
On Thursday, the auto board also confirmed that three of its directors have left in recent weeks.
Stéphanie Desforges left on Aug. 8, Richard Gagnon on July 9, and Louise Turgeon on July 21, auto board spokesperson Simon-Pierre Poulin shared in an email. The auto board “is going through a serious transition period, which may have led some members to re-evaluate their commitment. This type of turnover is common in any evolving organization,” Poulin wrote.
That brings the total number of board members to 12 now, he added, in line with provincial legislation.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
