Didn't get a notice to renew your Quebec driver's licence? You're not alone

If you rely on an annual reminder from Quebec's automobile insurance board to renew your licence, you may want to check your file.

CBC spoke with multiple drivers who say they didn't receive their payment notice by snail mail this year ahead of their birthday — when a driver's licence expires annually in Quebec.

That left some people cruising around without a valid driver's licence and others scrambling to renew theirs with the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) just days before it expired.

Lisa Levy, 53, says she became suspicious back in September when she still hadn't received her notice. Her birthday is in October.

"I was checking my mailbox every day, looking for it, waiting for it … I was like 'Gee, this is strange, usually they should give you at least 30 days to pay it,'" she said.

Both licence and registration renewal notices tell you how much you owe that year in total fees. The number is subject to change annually.

By mid-October, Levy says she got the "bright idea" to check her SAAQclic online portal — the online platform that launched last year which allows customers to do certain transactions online.

"Sure enough, there was a message in the inbox," she said.

But she didn't know to check there as she never received an email telling her there was activity in her account.

"What I didn't expect was that there wouldn't be an email saying, 'By the way, go and check your message centre,'" she said.

• Have a similar experience with the SAAQ? Contact assignmentmontreal@cbc.ca

Everyone, regardless of whether they receive a renewal notice in their SAAQclic account, should by default receive a physical one by mail, the SAAQ says.

An exception is a customer who has opted for electronic communication with the SAAQ, in which case a driver would receive notices exclusively through the portal, accompanied by an email alert.

Levy says it's possible she chose to receive notices from the SAAQ electronically when she created her account, but that doesn't explain why she didn't get the email alert. (Yes, she checked her junk folders.)

She says luckily, she was able to renew her licence just days before it expired.

"But if this had been my first driver's licence anniversary ever or if I had been a newcomer to Quebec, I wouldn't have known this … so I was aggravated by that," she said.

The SAAQ is encouraging people to check their junk folders for their email alert as well as ensure they entered the correct email address in their portal to make sure they can access their online notice.

'My biggest concern is consistency'

In an email to CBC, the SAAQ confirmed that a driver's online account is automatically linked to them, even before they access it for the first time.

That means you don't actually have to have "set up" your SAAQclic account for a notice to be waiting in there for you.

"But normally, the person would have already received their renewal notice by mail beforehand," SAAQ spokesperson Geneviève Côté said in an email.

"In certain exceptional cases … it cannot be excluded that mail may have been lost."

Masamichi Tsukada, a 24-year-old living in Montreal's Griffintown neighbourhood, thought that might have happened to him back in December when, two weeks before his birthday, he still hadn't gotten his notice in the mail.

Having moved from Ontario to Quebec in 2022, it was his first time needing to renew his licence.

"I didn't know how to do it," he said. He tried accessing his SAAQclic account but didn't have the documents necessary for the authentication process.

The complexity of the authentication process for SAAQclic was a large contributor to the high traffic at SAAQ service centres last year. (Érik Chouinard/Radio-Canada)

The process requires several steps, which include providing your social insurance number, health card number and driver's licence as well as the notice of assessment number issued by Revenu Québec in the last income tax return.

If you don't have that reference number handy, you have to wait up to 15 days for a confidential code to arrive in the mail or go get authenticated in person at a SAAQ service centre.

Tsukada couldn't afford to wait, so he called the SAAQ hotline and worked with an agent who helped him get into his SAAQclic account. He was able to renew his licence a week before it expired.

As a software developer, Tsukada says this was a poor user experience.

"My biggest concern is consistency," he said.

"It's hard to fathom that the government isn't able to do something on a consistent basis for all of its citizens."

No confirmation of problems

Despite several emails back and forth about the situation, the SAAQ refused to confirm whether or not it is aware of multiple people failing to receive their notices or email alerts.

"If a customer feels that they have not received a communication from the SAAQ that they should have received by mail, we invite them to contact us so that we can consult their file," said Côté.

When questioned if they were aware of the issues, both the Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Cybersecurity and Digital Technology told CBC the SAAQ does not report to them and directed all questions to the Crown corporation.

CBC asked local and provincial police whether they've noticed more drivers than usual being stopped for expired licences.

The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) said it had actually seen a large drop in the number of people being stopped for expired licences last year compared to 2022, but that is likely related to Quebec extending the validity period of drivers' licences and payment deadlines during the height of the issues with SAAQclic.

For its part, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) said they don't have the available data to answer that question, but normally the SAAQ would alert them of a situation with their system.

"At this moment ... we haven't heard anything," said spokesperson Ann Mathieu.

The fine for driving without a valid Quebec licence ranges between $300 and $600, in addition to other fees. The vehicle can also be seized and impounded for 30 days.

Customers can contact the SAAQ by phone at 1-800-361-7620, by email or direct message on social media for any concerns.