Quebec Liberals call for an investigation into digital health file

Quebec Liberal Party House Leader Monsef Derraji at Question Period on February 20, 2025. (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)

Quebec’s official opposition is calling on the public procurement office authority (AMP) to investigate the awarding of the contract for the health network’s digital transformation to the American company Epic.

At a press briefing Tuesday morning, Liberal MNA Monsef Derraji said he had obtained information regarding the calls for tenders.

The first call for tenders in 2022 was cancelled, and an official had a vested interest in ensuring that Epic won the second call for tenders in 2023, according to Derraji.

“Several people told me that someone at the Ministry of Health wanted Epic even before the tender was launched,” he stated.

“As an elected official, I cannot hear this information today and not share it,” added the Liberal representative.

The Digital Health Record (DSN) is an ambitious and controversial digitization project expected to cost between $1.5 billion and $3 billion.

It is a solution designed to merge some 400 different computer systems within the healthcare network.

It will allow healthcare professionals to view and update a patient’s digital health record with all relevant data in real time.

In recent weeks, several healthcare professionals have criticized the operation and implementation of the DSN as part of two pilot projects, which will launch on May 9 in two CIUSSSs, in the Mauricie region and in northern Montreal.

The implementation of the pilot projects in the two CIUSSSs will cost at least $400 million, and more than 1,000 people will be involved in supporting the operation.

- Patrice Bergeron

- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 1, 2026.