SAAQclic: ex-IT boss accused of deceiving senior management

Senior management at the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) was lied to by its IT boss as he defended an extra $222 million for the deployment of the SAAQclic platform, according to a former internal auditor.

The former director of SAAQ’s internal audit department, Daniel Pelletier, continued his testimony on Tuesday to the Gallant commission, which is investigating the failures of the state corporation’s digital shift.

Pelletier revealed that the office of then Transport Minister François Bonnardel was made aware in June 2022 of upcoming cost overruns of $222 million.

Newly appointed SAAQ CEO Denis Marsolais had called a meeting with a representative of the Minister’s office to announce the extra, which represented 50 per cent of the cost of the original contract with suppliers. The SAAQ’s Vice-President of Information Technology at the time, Karl Malenfant, was also present.

According to Pelletier, the meeting did not go well. “Things got a little heated in the minister’s office,” he says.

Pelletier says he warned Marsolais that presenting such an extra would not go down well in the Minister’s office, and that “it’s going to be hot”. Since the latter believes that the contract with the consortium is capped at $458 million, as reported to him by SAAQ senior management, Pelletier asserts.

Pelletier questioned the justifications given by Malenfant, responsible for the SAAQclic project, to defend the additional expenses to the contract. In his view, the suggested additions were not in fact additional.

Pelletier recounted what he had said to Marsolais following his meeting with the Minister’s office: “Denis, you’re being bullshitted” by Karl Malenfant. “I said it to him like that. A sort of cry from the heart,” Pelletier told Commissioner Gallant.

Marsolais lost his position in April 2023 in the wake of the failed rollout of SAAQclic, which caused huge queues in front of branches. The SAAQ’s technological modernization project could cost a minimum of more than $1.1 billion by 2027, or $500 million more than expected, according to the Auditor General.

A modified final bid

The final offer from the firms responsible for developing the SAAQclic platform was already raising concerns a few weeks before it was signed.

The selection committee for the tender suggested revising or clarifying certain points in the contract, before it was signed with the LGS-IBM-SAP alliance in March 2017.

Among the concerns was the number of hours for technology integration, which had been reduced by 730,000 compared with the initial bid. Three years later, the consortium would calculate that the project would ultimately require two million hours rather than 877,000.

“Somewhere in 2020, we were in the process of discussing the possibility of handing over nearly a million more,” recalled Pelletier.

In 2017, Pelletier’s team had not been made aware of the changes. But, while monitoring the bidding process, the former director recalls that some members of the selection committee “remained surprised” when they discovered the contents of the second bid.

The consultants’ “very high” hourly rate “for the complementary work reserve” was also a point to be checked against the initial proposal. It rose from $89 to $256. “For the same work, the competitor proposed an hourly rate of $151”, said the selection committee.

It also pointed out that the implementation of services for the delivery of permits and registrations on the platform would be done “without simulation”.

“It implied that there were no prior simulations, no tests. We now understand that it would surely have been useful,” Pelletier told Commissioner Gallant.

Pelletier is scheduled to be cross-examined on Wednesday morning.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews