Road safety spokesperson: the fee paid to Katherine Levac kept secret

The Society of‘Quebec Automobile Insurance (SAAQ) refuses to reveal how much comedian Katherine Levac was paid to star in its road safety advertisements.

• Read also: Katherine Levac will be the voice of road safety for the next year

Launched last fall and with a total budget of $6 million, the “Road safety, I’m on board” awareness campaign is available in various messages broadcast on television, radio, in newspapers and on the web, until June 2024.

Despite our requests to the Ministry of Transport, the SAAQ and the advertising agency whose services she retained, it was impossible to specify the fee granted to the star comedian of this vast campaign.

“As this contract is signed between the spokesperson and the LG2 agency, it is not possible for us to communicate information in this regard”, indicated to the Newspaper the spokesperson for the SAAQ, Geneviève Côté.

• Listen to the interview with Marc-André Gagnon, journalist at Journal de Montréal on Alexandre Dubé’s microphone via QUB radio :

“Lack of transparency,” says the PLQ

The Liberal Party of Quebec also tried, but without success, to obtain the amount paid to Mr.^me Levac for his role as spokesperson, this time using the law on access to information.

The SAAQ, however, provided the official opposition with a summary of the distribution costs ($3.5 million) and production costs ($2.4 million) of this campaign.

The liberal transport spokesperson, Monsef Derraji, has difficulty explaining the secrecy surrounding the fee paid to Mr.^me Levac. “It’s public money and we have the right to know,” proclaims the member for Nelligan.

Recently, Hydro-Québec also refused to reveal how much it paid the Canadiens’ head coach, Martin St-Louis, for an advertisement on the energy transition in which he states that “everyone must play their game.” , in the game.

“It’s a lack of transparency, once again,” regrets Mr. Derraji, emphasizing that the PLQ obviously has nothing against road safety campaigns.

A $30,000 fresco

The Liberal elected official was also surprised by the scale of the costs associated with the creation of a fresco, painted on the roadway, which served as the backdrop for the press conference of the Minister of Transport with Ms.^me Levac as well as the recording of a promotional video.

The entire work cost in total more than $30,000 and of this amount, more than $11,000 was spent on its removal.

The clean-up required the use of noisy industrial pressure machines for three days, which sparked indignation from parents and residents of the area, complaining about the waste of water, gasoline and paint.

In its response to the PLQ, the SAAQ specifies that the “cleaning work took longer than expected due to the heat which fused the paint to the roadway”. The state-owned company also explains that “the paint was removed using water jet compressors (pressure machine) to make it rise into “cakes”, which were then transported to the ecocentre”.

For the PLQ, it is a failed “marketing operation”, carried out by the Minister of Transport only “for a few photos”, while her ministry had, according to information obtained by Mr. Derraji, been warned by the City from Quebec that everything would have to be cleaned quickly before being able to reopen the street, precisely for reasons of road safety.