Quebec’s premier, François Legault, has announced that his government is exploring legal actions against SAAQ executives following a report revealing deliberate misinformation regarding cost overruns in the auto insurance board.
“I have instructed my team, including civil servants, to investigate legal recourse against the SAAQ executives who deceived our government,” Legault stated.
These remarks were made shortly after the release of the Gallant report on the SAAQclic controversy, which exposed that the SAAQ had deliberately misled government officials by providing misleading and falsely reassuring information to hide escalating costs of a digital transformation project.
While acknowledging that his government should have been more vigilant about the cost overruns, Legault emphasized that Quebec was unaware of the full extent of the SAAQclic project expenses until February 2025.
According to the report, the SAAQ did disclose some accurate information about cost increases to the CAQ government in 2023, but failed to provide a comprehensive overview of the evolving expenses.
Premier Legault revealed that it wasn’t until a year-and-a-half later that the government learned the revised total cost of the SAAQclic project had ballooned to $1.1 billion, a figure which had not been previously shared with his administration.
