Legault called to testify before public inquiry into SAAQclic scandal

Quebec Premier François Legault speaks to the media during the meetings of Canada’s premiers in Huntsville, Ont., on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)

Quebec Premier François Legault has been called to testify at the public inquiry into the cost overrun scandal at the province’s auto insurance board.

Legault’s office and the Gallant Commission confirmed the premier will appear Sept. 2 at the inquiry, which has proven embarrassing to the government a little more than one year before the provincial election. The commission, overseen by Judge Denis Gallant, is examining how the creation of the online platform known as SAAQclic incurred cost overruns of at least $500 million.

“The premier will be fully co-operating with the proceedings. It is important for him that Quebecers have all the answers,” Legault’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.

The online 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. In February, Quebec’s auditor general revealed that the online platform cost the province more than $1.1 billion — at least $500 million more than planned.

The premier has consistently maintained that he was not aware of the cost overruns before the auditor’s report.

But last week, the inquiry heard that Legault’s office had been informed of issues with the platform, including possible cost overruns, as early as 2020. As well, Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault was forced to admit on the witness stand that she had known that costs were rising in 2023, after previously testifying that she had only learned of the problems this year, in the auditor’s report.

One document provided to her office in June 2023, which discussed the auto board’s IT modernization project known as CASA, referred to an “amendment” of $45.7 million, and another to come, both of which would increase the bill from the initial contract of $458 million.

Guilbault first said she did not remember seeing the document or discussing its contents with representatives of the auto insurance board. But she was later forced to admit she had been aware of the information — after members of the inquiry pointed out that it had appeared on the agenda of a meeting she had with the SAAQ’s former president.

The commission also revealed that Guilbault had sent an email to Legault and his chief of staff in December 2024, suggesting the people heading the SAAQ should be replaced.

Éric Caire, the province’s cybersecurity and digital technology minister, resigned in the wake of the auditor’s report. He started testifying on Tuesday afternoon. The president and CEO of the auto insurance board, Éric Ducharme, was reassigned in July.

Legault’s chief of staff Martin Koskinen and the former secretary general of the executive council Yves Ouellet will also be called to testify. The inquiry has heard that Ouellet was informed in September 2022 of a shortfall of $222 million to deliver the SAAQclic platform.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 26, 2025.

By Frédéric Lacroix-Couture, The Canadian Press