MontrealBy 2020, the team in charge of Quebec’s auto insurance board’s digital transition knew the project was going to go over budget. But, two years later, that information hadn’t been communicated clearly to key ministers.Digital transition project was ‘too big, too much, too fast,’ warned IT company in 2019Karl Malenfant was the vice-president of IT at Quebec’s auto insurance board from 2013-20 and eventually became vice-president of digital experience, making him one of the few people that followed the CASA project from start to launch. (Ivanoh Demers/Radio-Canada)Quebec’s auto insurance board’s digital transition project was on course and respecting its budget.That was the message communicated to two key provincial ministers in 2021 and 2022 by Karl Malenfant — the person primarily responsible for the SAAQclic project — and his team, Malenfant revealed during his fifth day of testimony before the Gallant inquiry looking into the failed and well-over-budget rollout of the project.In recent weeks, several current and former Coalition Avenir Québec ministers — as well as Premier François Legault — have testified at the inquiry.But Malenfant’s testimony is seen as vital to understanding who knew what and when about the botched project. He was the vice-president of digital experience at the Société d’assurance automobile du Québéc (SAAQ) and the project director for CASA, which was meant to modernize different IT systems and improve the delivery of online services through the SAAQclic platform. He was one of the few people who was part of the CASA project from the beginning up until its launch in February 2023. Originally budgeted at $638 million in 2017, the CASA project is expected to cost $1.09 billion, according to a SAAQ document, dated March 2025 and presented to the inquiry Tuesday by lawyer Alexandre Thériault-Marois. If the SAAQ goes forward with the project’s third phase, that number will jump to over $1.1 billion, mirroring the finding a Quebec auditor general outlined in a scathing report into CASA published earlier this year.Yet, when Malenfant met with Transport Minister François Bonnardel in September 2021, everything was going according to plan, according to slides from his presentation that day. In 2022, when he would meet with Cybersecurity Minister Éric Caire – who stepped down days after the auditor general published her report – internal presentations showed the budget was more or less being respected. It had climbed to $682 million.This was despite the fact that the SAAQ had to re-evaluate its budget, dating back to 2017, due to repeated changes to the project. And that a serious underestimation of labour — by over a million hours — had triggered a dispute with one of its IT suppliers, LGS, which the SAAQ tried to settle by offering them another $222 million to finish the job.LGS had threatened to walk away if the SAAQ couldn’t provide the money. Malenfant said he weighed breaking their contract, which would have cost about $80 million in penalties and led to further delays, against giving the additional sums. He opted for the latter.The cost of the CASA project would jump to over $1.1 billion if the SAAQ, whose headquarters in Quebec City are seen here, goes forward with the project’s third phase. (Sylvain Roy Roussel/CBC)A few months earlier, in 2019, LGS’s parent corporation IBM had expressed its concerns over the scope of CASA to Malenfant, saying in a presentation the project was “too big, too much, too fast.” The project’s painful evolution, however, wasn’t laid out to Bonnardel or Caire.”If the cabinet wanted the project’s history, we would have presented that,” said Malenfant, adding that Bonnardel was interested in knowing whether the project was going to be delivered, whereas Caire wasn’t responsible for the SAAQ’s budget.The amounts to be reinvested into the project also weren’t communicated with Caire at the time. Commissioner Denis Gallant asked if the minister should have asked more questions. “It’s a good question,” answered Malenfant.The project’s profitability was also steadily decreasing, but Malenfant said that was a “secondary” matter for him.His highly-anticipated testimony, which began last Wednesday, is the longest heard at the inquiry to date and is set to end around lunchtime later today. Alexandre Thériault-Marois is the prosecutor for the Gallant commission (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)Testy exchangesSeveral witnesses at the inquiry have described Malenfant as a confident man who knows what he’s talking about and has answers to everything.During his testimony, Malenfant would often argue or clash with lawyer Thériault-Marois, telling him several times that “what you just said is false.”On several occasions, the commissioner seemed frustrated with the witness’s attitude.One of the more memorable exchanges came last Friday. Malenfant was caught off guard when the lawyer surfaced an email showing that the former SAAQ digital experience vice-president had sent himself a bid by an IT company in 2016 — something he wasn’t allowed to see. He had sworn under oath that he didn’t have access to the bids. On Tuesday, Malenfant’s lawyer presented an email exchange showing the SAAQ’s VP of finances at the time had authorized access to Malenfant and others, essentially giving him the right to see the documents. Malenfant is the 74th witness to speak at the inquiry.After Wednesday wraps up, Malenfant will have to submit the rest of his testimony via a written declaration given that the next witness needs to take the stand in the afternoon.The inquiry is expected to hear from witnesses until at least mid-October. ABOUT THE AUTHORCassandra Yanez-Leyton is a journalist for CBC News based in Montreal. You can email her story ideas at cassandra.yanez-leyton@cbc.ca.With files from Radio-Canada’s Jean-François Thériault
Break contract or pour in another $222M? SAAQclic leader says he had to keep going
