The Trivium lawyer firm took advantage of the arrival of a new council at the head of the city of Saguenay in November 2021. The office collected more than $ 1.3 million in various contracts between 2022 and January 2025.
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This is at least what documents obtained by TVA news reveal under the information law.
This sum covers many other files than the dismissals of Jean-Luc Roberge and Caroline Dion.
The manager of the finance committee in the city of Saguenay, Michel Potvin, says that the city has learned certain lessons. “We will never dismiss anyone again that way. Everyone is shocked, citizens, elected officials … “, he says.
Trivium did not count among the firms most requested by the municipality in 2021. Only four small mandates that year, for a total of $ 6,875.
Since then, its fees have gradually rose, from $ 200,800 in $ 2022 to $ 382,000 in 2023 and $ 647,000 in 2024. The data provided by the City of Saguenay stopped in January 2025.
The city had already granted mandates totaling $ 80,000 dollars in Trivium. The total from January 2021 to January 2025 therefore amounts to $ 1,358,305.
“We all agree. Lawyers are always too expensive, ”admits Michel Potvin in an interview.
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According to him, before 2022, the city mainly dealt with the Cain-Lamarre and Gauthier-Bédard firms. “It never cost $ 700,000 on average,” said Michel Potvin.
Trivium received the vast majority of its mandates from the Executive Committee. Its first importance, in April 2022, aimed to renegotiate the collective conventions of civil servants, which will bring it a total of $ 115,500.
In December 2022, the firm received $ 5,770 to establish the questionnaire for the selection of the new managing director.
“There must have been a lot of questions,” adds Michel Potvin. I am not a specialist, but we agree that at $ 300 an hour is going fast. ”
The position was assigned to Gabriel Rioux. “The lawyer of lawyers has not participated, neither directly nor far or directly in the selection. Therefore, Mr. Rioux is not at all, in my opinion, liable, ”would like to say the president of the finance committee.
Over a period of two years, between August 2022 and August 2024, Trivium invoked $ 185,000 to represent the city against Gazon Savard.
Between June 2023 and January 2024, the firm obtained $ 45,000 for three support from the board of directors of the Saguenay transport company (STS), in the wake of the dismissal of the Director General, Jean-Luc Roberge.
Michel Potvin says that a series of factors have stretched the file: Jean-Luc Roberge is in his third lawyer, the judge had to be absent twice for health reasons and a new arbiter was appointed.
Screenshot / LCN
“Jurisprudence tells us about six, eight, ten months. We are returned to three years, ”explains Mr. Potvin.
In January 2025, the fees already paid to Trivium in the file of ex-Greffière Caroline Dion amounted to $ 3,332 dollars. The dismissal had been approved by the majority of advisers.
“With what we know now, there is no one who would vote for that. It is sure we would make an agreement, ”says the elected municipal official.
Trivium is also the advisory company retained by the office of the mayor Julie Dufour. A total of $ 1811 per month, according to documents.
