SAAQclic inquiry: Christian Dubé and Sonia LeBel testify, ahead of Premier Legault Tuesday

Quebec’s Treasury Board had stopped keeping tabs on SAAQclic’s ballooning budget, a project that eventually ran half a billion dollars over its original price tag, during the CAQ’s first term.

The revelation came Friday after Ministers Christian Dubé and Sonia LeBel were summoned to the stand as part of the the Gallant Commission’s inquiry into the SAAQclic fiasco.

Treasury Board not responsible for close monitoring of SAAQclic: LeBel, Dubé

Treasury Board President Sonia LeBel told Commissioner Denis Gallant that her mandate was to save the provincial government $2 billion through program cuts by the end of 2022. Each ministry was required to show how it would contribute to that goal, and SAAQclic was flagged in red on her list.

“It was red in the sense that it could have jeopardized my overall objective,” she said.

But because the digital overhaul was expected to wrap up in 2023 — beyond her belt-tightening deadline — LeBel said it was dropped from the Treasury Board’s monitoring.

“Clearly, if it is going to be completed in the winter of 2023, it is not very relevant to my 2022 financial framework,” she said.

LeBel said that SAAQclic was treated as a simple budget line for cost cutting, and not as a complete transformation requiring her own ministerial oversight. That left ministers in the dark on operational details, she added, creating what she admitted was a gap in accountability.

“It doesn’t matter where the money comes from as long as the overall goal is achieved,” LeBel said. “I’m not necessarily shown the programs one by one and line by line.”

Once the overhaul was off the Treasury Board’s radar, LeBel said, responsibility for managing the project rested entirely with the SAAQ.

She was also pressed on staffing. LeBel said she only learned in June 2021 that the SAAQ was in “over-consumption” of staff, exceeding its authorized targets, and that the Secretariat then demanded a reduction plan.

Documents reveal that these reduction requests were never respected between 2020 and 2025, even though staffing levels continued to increase during this period, noted the commission’s attorney, Vincent Ranger.

“They’re definitely having difficulties,” LeBel acknowledged. “They’re not the only ones struggling. We’re just emerging from the pandemic. There have been a lot of upheavals.”

Dubé, who was President of the Treasury Board from 2018 to 2020, said he was present at the beginning of the SAAQ IT modernization project, called CASA.

The CASA project, which includes the SAAQclic platform, is expected to cost at least $1.1 billion, or $500 million more than expected, according to the auditor general’s report.

According to him, he only heard about the SAAQclic project twice during the start of the pandemic. The first time he heard “such significant cost overruns” was when the Auditor General of Quebec (AGQ) tabled its report last February.

Following the two ministers’ appearance, former SAAQ CEO Éric Ducharme continued his testimony Friday afternoon.

‘There’s nothing stopping the CAQ free fall’: Legault to testify on Tuesday

Quebec Premier François Legault will soon face questions at the very commission he created, set to testify on Sept. 2.

Legault launched the Gallant Commission back in March, vowing that “we have to act and sanction those responsible.” Now, he’ll have to defend his own government’s role in the half-billion-dollar SAAQclic fiasco.

According to political analyst Karim Boulos, the premier’s testimony couldn’t come at a worse time.

“It’s historic,” Boulos said, “but so is this government’s unique approach to governing for the last eight years.”

Legault’s testimony comes shortly after the CAQ lost its third straight byelection to the Parti Québécois (PQ) in Arthabaska on Aug. 11 — tumbling down to fourth place in a riding the party had won through by 52 per cent back in 2022.

A Leger poll conducted this month says the CAQ is currently polling in third place at 17 per cent behind the Liberals and the PQ.

“As a rock tumbles down the hill, it just continues to tumble until it hits something hard to stop it,” Boulos said. “There’s nothing stopping the CAQ free fall.”

He added the premier’s appearance will only deepen the stain on the CAQ brand, with little chance of redemption.

The Tuesday testimony could “accelerate” the downward spiral of the party, he said, leaving many CAQ MNAs and ministers “wondering what their political future looks like.”

“This is not a moment where he can somehow pull a rabbit out of his hat and say, ‘these are actual wins for Quebecers,'” he said.

Public reaction to the premier’s testimony could echo what Boulos said Quebecers have been feeling for years — that the CAQ has been playing fast and loose with taxpayer money from projects like Northvolt to fiascos like SAAQclic.

“It’s not just ministers and under-ministers who are responsible,” Boulos said. “The premier has to be aware of what’s going on and be able to have oversight and and responsibility at the end of the day.”

–With files from La Presse Canadienne