Éric Caire

Éric Caire has been trying to drag Quebec's government IT systems into the 21st century — a project that is urgent, underappreciated, and harder than it looks. The province has had high-profile IT failures that cost taxpayers enormous amounts and still manages to run significant portions of its public services on systems that are decades old. Every government in Canada faces this but Quebec's scale makes it particularly consequential. The move toward digital-first services and away from the paper-based processes that currently create friction for citizens is the right direction. The question is always pace — bureaucratic IT projects run slowly, the political cycle runs faster, and the gap between the ambition and the reality is usually closed by the next government rather than the one that started the project.

Éric Caire serves as Quebec's Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital Transformation — the minister responsible for modernizing Quebec's government IT systems, digital service delivery, and cybersecurity posture. It is a portfolio that sits at the intersection of technology, public administration, and the fiscal consequences of decades of deferred IT investment that is one of the largest unresolved liabilities in Quebec's public sector. Quebec government IT has historically been managed through large, long-term contracts with major systems integrators that created significant vendor lock-in, cost overruns, and service delivery problems that became politically visible when major projects failed publicly. The GIRES payroll system collapse at the Société des alcools du Québec, the problems with the Système d'information du registre des entreprises (SIRE), and other high-profile IT failures had made digital transformation a political issue before Caire took the portfolio. He has pursued a strategy of moving Quebec government services toward digital-first delivery, reducing the paper-based and in-person processes that create friction for citizens and businesses accessing government services. The cybersecurity component has become more urgent as Quebec government systems have faced attempted intrusions and as the consequences of successful cyberattacks on government infrastructure have become more visible. The challenge of digital transformation in government is that it requires sustained investment, cultural change within bureaucracies that resist it, and political patience that election cycles do not naturally supply. Caire has been more persistent on this file than many ministers in equivalent roles in other provinces.