Geneviève Guilbault Rabroue again SAAQ for “an obvious lack of judgment”

The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Geneviève Guilbault, invokes “yet another example of the need to change the leadership of the Quebec Automobile Insurance Company (SAAQ)”.

This time, it was a karaoke activity organized by the Crown Company that set fire to the powder on Thursday.

On press sons, the Saaq invited journalists to sing to save lives And to come and discover, Friday in Quebec, his brand new concept of raising awareness of road safety under the theme of driving with weakened faculties, baptized: Are you Karaok to drive?

This fun activity takes the form of a karaoke featuring well -known Quebec songs, whose words have been revisited in order to transmit messages of prevention and awareness of responsible conduct, particularly in a festive contextwe explained.

It was not necessary to make the Minister responsible who, for months, must have to compose with the consequences of what is now agreed to call the “Fiasco Saaqclic”, a scandal caused by the technically missed and financial company of the state company for months.

A few hours later, Ms. Guilbault was therefore expressed on the social network X by quoting this activity as yet another example of the need to change leadership to the Saaqwhat she did Wednesday by dismissing the CEO Éric Ducharme.

Both the concept of this campaign and the moment chosen to announce it reflect an obvious lack of judgment, she wrote. I discussed it with the news CEO interim [Annie Lafond]which is 100 % agree. We asked them to review the awareness campaign.

The event was finally canceled at the end of the day by the Saaqwho specified by the way of a press release that his approach aimed above all to highlight a carrier field activity, focused on road safety, especially in this summer period when road accidents are unfortunately more frequent.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Ms. Guilbault had already declared that l’image of the Saaq had been irreparably tarnishednot only because of the “Fiasco Saaqclic”, which led to the opening of several surveys, but also because of its inability to regain control.

She also promised to pose other gestures during next weekseither before the publication of the Gallant Commission’s final report, in order to restore the confidence of Quebecers in the Automobile Insurance Company, the remarks that she resumed in an interview on Thursday A whole morningon here first.

A leadership problemhammer the liberals

The liberal opposition spokesperson Monsef Derraji, however, was dubious about the minister’s release on Thursday.

You said yesterday to be in team meeting three times a day with the Saaqdid he recall on X. And despite this proximity, you try to make us believe that a campaign like “Are you Karaok to drive?” has not been validated?

After a technological fiaco, two CEO dismissed [Éric Ducharme et, avant lui, Denis Marsolais]a deficit of $ 500 million, and now a communication operation that borders on ridicule, it is no longer simply a management issue. It is a problem of political leadershiphe added.

The Quebec Liberal Party has been asking Ms. Guilbault for months for months as Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, a portfolio which she inherited after the 2022 general elections, a few months before the disastrous launch of the Saaqclic platform in February 2023.