Gallant Report: The Revelations
On February 13, 2026, Commissioner Denis Gallant tabled his 826-page final report — the product of 75 days of hearings, 129 witnesses, and over 3 million documents analyzed. The verdict is devastating: SAAQ management lied for nearly ten years, costs were systematically camouflaged, and a cronyism network contaminated the CASA program from its very origins.
Alliance contract budget explosion
Original Alliance contract
Documents analyzed
Witnesses heard
Recommendations
Cancelled entirely
The report's most explosive conclusion is found in Chapter 11: SAAQ management didn't simply omit information — they deliberately lied.
- Lied to parliamentarians at the Commission de l'administration publique (May 2020 and March 2021)
- Lied to ministers and their offices
- Deliberately lied in official accountability reports
- Showed "fluctuating transparency" toward elected officials
- Kept the government in the dark about the true state of the program
The report details how cost overruns were systematically hidden:
- Alliance contract budget went from $375M to $620M, with intermediate milestones carefully concealed
- Frequent reallocation of funds within the Alliance contract to cover tracks
- Strategy of multiple small amendments to avoid transparency thresholds
- First $45.7M amendment smuggled through (November 2022)
- The AG concluded costs increased by nearly $500M total
- Regulatory exemptions from 2014 maintained well beyond 2018
- Program deliberately fragmented to dodge reporting requirements
“Committed to completing it at all costs”
The report maps a network of personal relationships that infiltrated the CASA program from its origins:
- Figure 9 in the report traces Karl Malenfant's connections from 1994 to 2017 — from Hydro-Quebec (SIC project) to SAAQ
- Sole-source contracts awarded to Madeleine Chagnon and Louise Savoie, close to Malenfant
- Tender P23365: spouses of bidders recruited into the team
- Proliferation of sole-source contracts to former colleagues
- The Commission denied participant status to Karl Malenfant
The report reveals the technology solution was never validated:
- SAAQ never verified that an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system was appropriate for its needs
- Only SAP was seriously considered — single-vendor positioning
- The acquisition process did not favor free market competition
- "Innovation overbidding" — SAAQ wanted to do everything at once
- "Too vast, too ambitious, implemented too quickly"
The February 2023 launch is dissected in minute detail:
- Service points closed 3 weeks before launch for the "switchover"
- "Big bang" deployment approach chosen despite identified risks
- Tests not completed, quality insufficient
- Test scope reduced to meet the deadline
- First week: "difficult pre-opening"
- Second week: "A disastrous second week"
- Lineups starting February 27 in freezing temperatures
- Government Authentication Service (SAG) also failed
- Guilbault cut short a European trip to manage the crisis
- Caire "rejected all responsibility and blamed SAAQ"
“Government complacency in the face of SAAQ insubordination”
The report describes a systemic governance breakdown:
- Internal audit undermined then discredited
- Legal direction had insufficient involvement
- Contract management direction sidelined
- No quality program plan (PQP) in place
- Centralized governance, "at all costs" mentality
- Trivialization of contract management rules
Commissioner Gallant makes 26 recommendations to prevent such a fiasco from happening again. Among the most notable:
- Create a centralized digital transformation entity
- Tighten Crown corporation governance rules
- Cap project costs and contract durations
- Reform public contract laws
- Guarantee auditor independence
- Strengthen institutional watchdogs (AMP, etc.)
- Reform commissions of inquiry legislation
- Protect witnesses from retaliation
The report's release sent shockwaves through the National Assembly and beyond.
Denis Gallant, Commissioner
The commissioner also urged Quebec to have "the courage of transparency" and recommended creating a "tiger team" — a centralized digital expertise unit within the state.
François Legault, Premier
- Blames the Liberals: "where the problem began is when the contract was given to an external firm, that was in 2017, under a Liberal government"
- Reiterates he was "never, never informed that the revised total cost of the SAAQclic project had reached $1.1 billion"
- Says he is looking at possible legal action against SAAQ executives who lied
Christine Fréchette, CAQ leadership candidate
Quebec Liberal Party
Québec solidaire
Mr. Bouazzi called the affair a "hold-up": "You have to understand the amount of money: it's like spending $200,000 per week for ten years."
Parti québécois
See also: Gallant Commission — the inquiry that led to this report
Quotes cited are from the official report of the Commission of Inquiry into the CASA-SAAQclic program. This site offers a satirical reading.