Passe-Partout costume heavily damaged in flooding at Tele-Quebec

Water gushes from a major water main break in Montreal. (Daniel J. Rowe/CTV News)

A small jewel of television heritage is in peril: the original costume worn by the Passe-Partout character was “badly damaged” by a burst pipe that flooded Télé-Québec in Montreal last week.

Télé-Québec president Marie Collin herself took matters into her own hands to try and save it, Culture and Communications Minister 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 seven-foot pipe break.

Administrative archives and computer and electronic equipment were submerged, but not the television archives, he added.

The disaster did not affect Télé-Québec broadcasts, because a tried-and-tested contingency plan was put in place, he added. As a result, Télé-Québec continues to operate from another location in the west end of Montreal.

Passe-Partout is one of the characters in a legendary French-language series of the same name first broadcast in 1977.

This children's series has gone through several iterations, but the original Passe-Partout character was played by Marie Eykel.

- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Aug. 21, 2024.