The Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) has advised us, just today, that the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) is modernizing their driver and vehicle systems.

During Quebec’s system updates from today Monday, January 30 to Thursday, February 16, 2023 the link between their registration system and MTO’s will be unavailable.

As a result, the MTO are pausing vehicle registrations and driver’s licence exchanges from Quebec during that time. Customers are being advised to return to Service Ontario centres to complete transactions when the system is back online on February 17.

Residents of Quebec may drive vehicles registered in their home jurisdiction on Ontario roads for a period of up to six months. People who have moved to Ontario from Quebec have a period of 30 days to register vehicles in Ontario. Quebec customers can contact the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec at 1-800-361-7620 for assistance.

The problem, of course, for members who have bought vehicles in Quebec is that they will not only be unable to register them to their name in Ontario until Feb. 17, but you will be unable to get those vehicles on the road for your customer in that time period. Temporary permits and the like will not solve that difficulty.

The MTO have no work-around for dealers apparently, the best recommendation MTO has for dealers is to book appointments to transfer vehicles for February 17th, and that can be done online at https://www.ontario.ca/page/book-serviceontario-appointment