The current Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Geneviève Guilbault, is scheduled to deliver her version of events regarding the SAAQclic fiasco to the Gallant Commission on Friday.
Guilbault’s 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.
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The Gallant Commission is investigating the management of the IT modernization of the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), including the SAAQclic platform.
Asked if she was ready to testify earlier this week, Guilbault replied: “Of course.”
“We’ve been collaborating with the commission for several weeks now. The work being done at the commission is very important,” she said Wednesday upon arriving at a Cabinet meeting.
Last week, Guilbault emphasized that she intended to participate in the Gallant Commission’s work “with all the transparency and collaboration I usually offer in the interest of Quebec taxpayers.”
Guilbault has been Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility since October 2022.
On Thursday, Bonnardel, who was Minister of Transport from 2018 to 2022, argued that “a few people” managed, “shamefully,” to give him inadequate information so that he was unable to see the true picture of the situation.
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He criticized the Crown corporation for not providing him with the true financial picture of the digital shift when he took office as Minister in November 2018.
The SAAQ’s IT project, called CASA, is expected to cost at least $1.1 billion, $500 million more than expected, according to the Auditor General of Quebec.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
