A jewel of Quebec television heritage is in jeopardy: the original Passe-Partout costume was severely damaged when a pipe burst and flooded at Télé-Québec in Montreal last week.
It was Télé-Québec president Marie Collin herself who took matters into her own hands to try and save it, Minister of Culture and Communications Mathieu Lacombe said on Wednesday.
“The CEO of Télé-Québec has taken charge of it personally, she’s dealing with a restoration company, so we don’t yet know if it’s going to be saved, but we’re working on it,” Lacombe told a press scrum before a cabinet meeting.
He confirmed that the public broadcaster had suffered serious damage as a result of the City of Montreal’s massive pipe break.
Administrative archives and computer and electronic equipment were flooded, but not the television archives, he added.
The disaster did not affect Télé-Québec broadcasting, because a tried-and-tested contingency plan was put in place, he said. As a result, Télé-Québec is continuing to operate from another location in the west end of Montreal.
Passe-Partout was a popular French-language children’s television program produced by Radio-Québec from 1977 to 1992, and revived in 2019.
– This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Aug. 21, 2024.