Letter – “Enough is enough, SAAQ, hear my cry”

This letter was written by a road accident victim, following our series of articles on the subject. He requested anonymity.

My life hasn't been the same since I was killed in a car accident in 2007. I'm a shadow of my former self. I'm a ghost in my wounded body. The SAAQ—the insurance for which we pay—is ghosting me. On average, we have to wait one to two years to assert our rights. On top of that, we have to pay the bills of the lawyers who have to defend us, because they know how to argue to perhaps hope to be respected.

It goes without saying that the traumatic effects of car accidents are hard to live with. It's even harder when you have to defend yourself against Goliath, who, thanks to his high seat of power, can decide who lives or dies. The Société d'Assurance Automobile du Québec (SAAQ) has my life in its hands.

Before the accident, we had a life, a lifestyle, a salary. All that is now destroyed. Whether you've gone through every letter of the alphabet, there's no greater pain than being disrespected by professional swindlers.

Getting ripped off is what accident victims have to endure. They've lost their health as well as their joie de vivre, because the battle they face is unequal to begin with. But when the group Accidentés de la route en Litige avec la SAAQ was created, we became a little stronger, because our voices are heard.

Still, my ghost and my life have suffered many scars from this journey.

In 2007, while driving, I was hit in the left-hand door at a speed of between 90 km/h and 100 km/h. The bone inside my ankle was shattered by the accident, and when I walked, the lump touched the ground. I couldn't work anymore, it hurt too much. I was on unemployment and welfare while waiting for a settlement with the SAAQ, which refused to recognize my trade as a heavy machinery operator. Yet I had a diploma and proof of employment.

And so it goes on. Pain, misdiagnosis, corrected diagnosis, surgery not performed at the right time. In 2014, seven years after my accident, I had to stop using cannabis because of psychosis. I met with my psychiatrist, who never made the connection between the accident and my use for pain.

The psychiatrist didn't want to comment on my mental illness, he followed me for 12 years and never wanted to make a report to the SAAQ to help me. He simply said I was schizo-affective. But what a professional term for eradicating the source of the problem – my car accident – that caused the pain I was forced to counter with cannabis!

All this created bigger monetary holes. It only helped as a crutch, to alleviate the immeasurable expectation one must face.

In 2015, my ankle was consolidated (still broken and the bone was still touching the ground). The SAAQ made me sign an agreement when I wasn't even fit to look after myself. I was under the effects of Abilify, a drug that is now the subject of a class action lawsuit. The effect of this drug is that the patient is unable to judge for himself, and this was on top of the effects of my 2014 psychosis (4 months in the psychiatric hospital). My parents did everything for me, from A to Z, and they never got home help for me.

So I was treated for psychosis. And that was it, they told me: don't talk about the SAAQ anymore, we can't help you.

So here I am, gradually returning to work in construction, as a heavy machinery operator. I worked eight years later with my ankle still broken, and I suffered so much that all I did was work, nothing else. The rest of my family and my wife looked after the house.

A year ago, I collapsed, no longer able to walk. I finally had surgery on my ankle and it's slowly recovering. Sixteen years of suffering and it's not over yet. I'm still fighting with the SAAQ.

The state company abused me and took advantage of my psychotic state to get me to give up. They made me a derisory offer that we had to accept because we couldn't afford it. They had exhausted all my resources. I spent from 2007 to 2015 waiting and suffering. To calculate the money they owed me, they assigned me a trade at $17 an hour instead of the trade I was actually doing.

The merry-go-round is now starting all over again following my operation. Fighting between the lawyer and the SAAQ, we don't know what to do. There are immeasurable administrative delays and problems between the operation and the date at the Tribunal Administratif du Québec. It's already been a year since the operation, and I'm still waiting for recognition for the work I used to do, earning about $1,400 a week. I had worked hard to build my life and now, since June 2024, I'm being paid $520 a week. That's the equivalent of the full-time minimum wage.

We have to tell our stories to see just how much they rely on waiting, mental, physical and moral exhaustion, until we give up, because the amounts to which we are actually entitled are staggering. That's the real reason they don't want to make us whole. They want us to die, because we're a nuisance to them and their luxuries.

When will we get financial help? I can't take it anymore. Thank you for hearing that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. SAAQ HEAR MY CRY.

IT CAME FROM THE HEART AND MY HEART IS ALMOST ON FIRE, SO OVERWHELMED AM I BY THESE MANIPULATIVE ACTS OF WICKEDNESS AGAINST HONEST, REAL PEOPLE.

Dear friends, continue your fight, the best is yet to come.