Quebec’s public procurement watchdog, the Autorité des marchés publics, has rebuked the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec over its SAAQclic online platform. The watchdog found the board did not manage public funds responsibly, changed essential parts of its framework agreement, and divided contract requirements in ways that avoided accountability obligations.
Another blow for a board already under inquiry
Quebec’s auto insurance board has taken another public hit, this time from the independent agency that oversees the province’s public procurement markets.
The Autorité des marchés publics concluded that the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec, known as the SAAQ, failed to manage public funds responsibly while developing SAAQclic, its online services platform. The platform is the system Quebecers use to book road tests, register vehicles, renew licences and handle other insurance board services.
The ruling adds a procurement finding to a file that was already politically damaging. The SAAQ was the subject of a public inquiry last year, and the province’s auditor general had already reported that the platform was expected to cost taxpayers at least $1.1 billion, about $500 million more than originally anticipated.
What the watchdog said the board did wrong
The Autorité identified specific problems in how the contracts behind the platform were handled, rather than limiting itself to the final price.
It said the board modified essential elements of its framework agreement with suppliers in ways that changed both the nature of the work and its cost. A framework agreement is meant to set the terms under which a public body buys goods and services over time. Changing its essential elements after the fact can alter what taxpayers are paying for without a fresh, open process.
The watchdog also said the board divided up contract requirements to avoid complying with accountability obligations. Splitting a requirement into smaller pieces can keep each piece below a threshold that would otherwise trigger added oversight, competition or reporting. The Autorité treated that practice as a failure of contract management, not a technicality.
Together, the findings describe a board that reshaped a major technology contract as it went, while the controls meant to keep that spending visible did not keep pace.
Real-time audits every six months
The watchdog issued several recommendations in response. Chief among them, the board’s auditors are to conduct a real-time audit of the framework agreement and the contracts connected to it, and to report the results every six months.
That is a different kind of remedy from a one-time review after the money has been spent. A recurring audit is intended to catch further changes to the deal while work is still under way, and to give the province a regular public record of whether the board is following the rules it was found to have broken.
The recommendation also keeps pressure on the board beyond a single news cycle. Every six-month report will be a fresh test of whether contract changes are being documented, justified and approved in the open.
The rollout Quebecers remember
For most drivers, SAAQclic is not an abstract procurement file. Its launch in 2023 went badly, producing major delays and long lineups at insurance board branches across the province.
People who could not complete transactions online had to attend a branch in person to take road tests, register vehicles or renew documents. Lineups outside service centres became the public image of the project long before its full cost was known.
The auditor general’s later findings on cost, and the testimony heard by the public inquiry led by Commissioner Denis Gallant, then raised a second set of questions: not only whether the system worked at launch, but whether ministers and the public were given a clear picture of what it would cost. Reporting on the inquiry noted that its hearings examined assurances given in 2021 and 2022 that the project was on track, even as internal figures later pointed toward a cost of about $1.1 billion.
Why this ruling matters on its own
It would be easy to treat the procurement watchdog’s decision as one more entry in a long scandal. Its value is narrower and, for taxpayers, more practical.
The auditor general measured the damage. The public inquiry examined who knew what, and when. The Autorité des marchés publics has now ruled on how the contracts themselves were managed, and has ordered a continuing audit mechanism to watch them.
If that mechanism is followed, the next dispute over SAAQclic spending should surface in a scheduled audit report, rather than years later in an inquiry hearing room.
