Guilbault’s office pleads ignorance regarding SAAQ cost increases

Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault says she first learned of the true cost of Quebec’s digital licensing platform in the auditor general’s report.

Current and former staff members of the office of Geneviève Guilbault, Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, have claimed that they only learned of cost overruns for SAAQclic last February with the report of the Auditor General of Quebec (VGQ) in February.

However, documentation referring to an increase in the contract with the consortium was sent to the office in 2023, according to what was revealed during the Gallant commission on Friday morning.

The chief of staff at the time, Geneviève Cantin, acknowledged that she had been made aware of the contractual strategy in the summer of 2023 for the SAAQ’s IT modernization project called CASA.

The document presents an “addendum” concluded in November 2022 for $45.7 million and another one to come that would increase the bill from the initial contract of $458 million.

“I just want to be clear, these are not cost overruns. These are addenda. (...) To me, when you look at this, it’s the contractual strategy.

Addenda are part of the contract,“ she testified before the commission of inquiry.

This statement made Commissioner Denis Gallant jump.

”The lawyer in me calls an additional $45 million a cost overrun, unless I’m mistaken," he said.

Cantin maintained that she was not aware of this concept regarding amendments and was at the time involved in crisis management following the failed launch of the SAAQclic platform, which caused endless lines at SAAQ branches.

This contractual strategy was also sent by email at least twice to political advisor Dave Gravel. He said he had received the document, but that “no one” had explained the contractual strategy or what the addenda were.

He told the commission that this information arrived in his email inbox while he was on vacation. When he returned, he had many emails to deal with.

He therefore expected to be notified about a matter of this importance.

“We are being sent information that is buried in emails. (...) I think it would be only fair to schedule a meeting to discuss these issues in detail,” said Gravel, who testified by videoconference from outside the country.

The SAAQ’s IT project, called CASA, is expected to cost at least $1.1 billion, $500 million more than planned, according to the Quebec Auditor General.

Guilbault is expected to give her version of events regarding the SAAQclic fiasco on Friday afternoon.

Her testimony will come the day after that of her predecessor at Transport, François Bonnardel, who insisted on Thursday that he had received incomplete and erroneous information about the project’s costs.

– This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Aug. 22, 2025.