The suspension of the technological transformation of the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) was already discussed during the development of the project.
That is what a former external consultant said Tuesday morning before the Gallant Commission, which is investigating the setbacks of the state-owned company’s digital shift.
According to his testimony, Stéphane Mercier raised the idea of suspending the IT project called CASA with the former vice-president of information technology at the SAAQ, Karl Malenfant, around 2019 and 2020.
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“Karl welcomes it because he is rigorous. We analyze it,” said Mercier, who worked at the SAAQ between 2013 and 2022. But the impact on costs is “too high,” so “we continue,” he continued.
Mercier observed that the management of the state-owned company “generally wanted to carry out the project,” which includes the SAAQclic platform.
“I’m not saying they wanted to do it at all costs, but we wanted to do it. We felt that strongly,” the witness said.
“The suspension came with each rescheduling. We asked ourselves the question,” he said. “When we calculate the impact cost, we always arrive at the same answer: the impact cost is too high. Despite the discrepancies and pitfalls we encounter, we continue.”
To his knowledge, the project did not provide criteria determining the triggering of a suspension process.
He also had discussions with Malenfant’s counterpart at LGS, Nabil Aboutanos, regarding “a break,” while production issues were on the radar. “Can we take a break, redo our homework, and start again? Those are the kinds of discussions I had with Nabil,” Mercier said.
In response to a question from the commission’s attorney, Alexandre Thériault-Marois, Mercier acknowledged that he was not in the “optimistic camp” regarding the outcome of the project, when he left his position in the fall of 2020 before returning to the SAAQ in 2022.
“The SAAQ management was a bit caught up in this. The longer you wait, the more dependent you are on the firm and the higher the impact cost. It’s like a vicious circle. … I was at the end of the model, let’s put it that way,” he said.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
