Nancy Trottier opens her handbag and shows the little neon pink canister she’s been carrying around everywhere for months: “That’s cayenne pepper, which I keep just in case Mr. Vachon tries to attack to me. I know its expiration date by heart. And believe me, I’ll change it as soon as it expires,” promises the small but energetic general manager of Saint-Constant, on the South Shore of Montreal.
In the company of Mayor Jean-Claude Boyer, she attended last Monday a third motion pleaded by the municipality in Superior Court since October 18, to renew from 10 days in 10 days an order prohibiting the citizen Michel Vachon from going to municipal buildings. of Saint-Constant and to attend meetings of the municipal council.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Nancy Trottier, general manager of Saint-Constant, shows our photographer the canister of pepper spray she carries with her in case Michel Vachon attacks her.
The 62-year-old man, of rather imposing size, has been convicted three times since 2019 for assaulting employees and elected officials, then twice convicted of contempt of court for his stubbornness in not respecting orders of the court prohibiting him from harassing and intimidating the people of the City.
We don’t know where it will end. We’re up against a man with nothing to lose.
Jean-Claude Boyer, Mayor of Saint-Constant
On October 17, he sent a letter to the Legault government, requesting an urgent meeting with the ministers of Justice, Simon Jolin-Barrette, of Public Security, François Bonnardel, and of Municipal Affairs, Andrée Laforest, to discuss the case of this “madman”.
The office of the Minister of Public Security indicates that a meeting will be held “quickly” with the municipality to address the issue, but no date has been set for the moment.
The case has cost the municipality more than $400,000 in legal fees to date, the mayor said in his letter.
His civic duty
“It has been six years since my fundamental right to attend the council [municipal] is bullied,” complains Mr. Vachon, who is representing himself before the courts. “It’s appalling, what they put me through. They are made 16 councilors and civil servants against me, because I ask disturbing questions. »
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Jean-Claude Boyer, Mayor of Saint-Constant
For 32 years, Michel Vachon has lived in a modest house located a few steps from the town hall of Saint-Constant. Since 2010, he has made it a point to attend City business. After failing to run for mayor in 2013 (he only received 49 votes), he went to war against new mayor Jean-Claude Boyer.
“Fraudsters! »
“Craps! »
“Corrupt! »
During meetings of the municipal council, Mr. Vachon asks his questions with a long editorial preamble making a “trial of intention” to the elected officials. He fixes his gaze on the officials, whom he stares at “long in an obsessive and hateful way”, indicates a court judgment rendered in 2019.
At the same time, he requests mountains of documents (more than 380 since 2010) through the Access to Information Act, which requires hours of work from all departments of City Hall. Even if his requests are deemed abusive by the Commission d’accès à l’information, Mr. Vachon continues to claim that elected officials have “fomented” to hide crucial documents from citizens.
Shadowing and insults on the public highway
In 2017, the situation got out of hand. According to a summary of the events made by judge Katheryne Desfossés, Mr. Vachon shadows the clerk, Ms.e Sophie Laflamme, on her bike, over several hundred meters, in the streets of the city. He was then accused of criminal harassment, but acquitted by the courts.
Despite everything, he continues to spend hours each week at City Hall, to the point where a fellow citizen calls him “Mr. Mayor” jokingly. The employees are on the lookout, uncomfortable, summarizes the judge Desfossés. A clerk’s assistant, whom Mr. Vachon followed and insulted on the public highway, develops a situational adjustment disorder with severe anxiety, and leaves for a year on sick leave.
A breaststroke session ends up breaking out at the city council in September 2019. Mr. Vachon is sentenced for assault, but enjoys a conditional discharge, which prohibits him from harassing elected officials and employees.
An “unpublished remedy” refused by justice
The City then applied to the Superior Court to obtain a “novel remedy”, provided by the courts to control vexatious litigants: prohibit Michel Vachon from attending council meetings and force him to ask his questions only by email.
“The Court wants to believe, at this stage, that Mr. Vachon will comply with the orders”, decides judge Chantal Masse, who rejects the request, but orders, once again, Mr. Vachon to stop “making threats and to “deliberately follow” officials through the streets of the city.
Nothing works. Mr. Vachon’s behavior is picking up again.
In December 2019, according to a judgment which condemns him for eight contempts of court, Mr. Vachon intimidates and stares at the clerk Sophie Laflamme while waiting for her next to his car, in the parking lot of a business. In March 2020, he noted the license plate of another City employee, and sent her an email in which he told her that he knew the usual time at which she left City Hall.
“Are you afraid of me? »
A few days later, in the parking lot of a business, he rushes with his bicycle towards a City employee and asks her in an angry tone: “Are you afraid? Are you afraid of me? Stop walking past us! Go elsewhere! This is the last time I warn you. »
« J’étais fâché », se justifie M. Vachon en entrevue avec La Presse la semaine dernière, soutenant que les fonctionnaires se sont « parjurées » en inventant plusieurs allégations à son sujet.
« Le comportement de M. Vachon dépasse largement ce qui est civilement acceptable », conclut en septembre 2021 la juge Katheryne Desfossés, qui lui interdit d’assister aux instances de la Ville pendant un an. Mais dans la foulée, « afin de préserver le droit de monsieur Vachon d’assister aux séances du conseil », elle ordonne à la Ville de Saint-Constant d’enregistrer les réunions, de les rendre disponibles pour M. Vachon dans un délai de sept jours, de prendre ses questions par courriel et d’y répondre lors de l’enregistrement des séances, dans la mesure où elles sont recevables.
Pour la Ville de Saint-Constant, cette solution n’est qu’un « fragile diachylon » qui exacerbe les frustrations de M. Vachon.
Attaque violente contre la greffière
En février 2022, il attaque violemment Me Laflamme en pleine rue, lui fonçant dessus avec son vélo, le poing brandi vers son visage, et la projette dans la neige à deux reprises.
M. Vachon passe une trentaine de jours en prison dans l’attente de son procès pour voie de fait.
La Ville, plaidant son devoir d’assurer à ses employés un milieu de travail exempt de harcèlement psychologique, obtient de la Cour une ordonnance pour faire évaluer M. Vachon dans un hôpital psychiatrique, où il demeure pendant une vingtaine de jours.
Il refuse de révéler le diagnostic que lui ont donné les psychiatres. « C’est un diagnostic qu’ils ont donné arbitrairement, juste pour avoir quelque chose à dire », prétend M. Vachon en entrevue avec La Presse.
« Je vais reprendre mes droits »
Puis le 7 septembre dernier, M. Vachon écrit à la Régie intermunicipale de police Roussillon pour l’avertir qu’il entend « reprendre [ses] rights” and report back to City Hall, now that the year-long ordinance barring him from dating has ended. “In order to acclimatize them, I will gradually move around occasionally in the public parking lot at City Hall as I have always done,” he told the police.
At the end of its course, the City of Saint-Constant is now trying to permanently ban Michel Vachon from entering City Hall, but must for the time being renew its request for 10 days in 10 days.
“Many elected officials and civil servants have expressed that they would categorically refuse to have to put up with the presence of this aggressor again in municipal buildings, writes the mayor, in the cry from the heart that he addressed in October to the Legault government. The city could soon be completely paralyzed if the light does not appear soon at the end of the tunnel in this file. »
“The justice system must be adjusted to this new reality,” argues Mr. Boyer.
An aid fund and powers of exclusion demanded
Faced with a case of harassment described as “extreme” by the Union of Quebec Municipalities (UMQ), the City of Saint-Constant is asking the government to create a special fund to help cities bring legal action against citizens whose the behavior is out of bounds.
The City had to present its voluminous evidence to no less than 15 different judges from the Court of Quebec, the Superior Court, the Court of Appeal and administrative tribunals, in order to temporarily block the participation of citizen Michel Vachon in its instances. “Everything works in a vacuum. The Criminal Court does not speak to the Civil Court. It is extremely heavy and expensive. I think it could be otherwise,” laments Mayor Jean-Claude Boyer, in an interview with The Press.
“There are cities that will never be able to defend themselves. Tragic things could happen because municipalities, which do not have the necessary resources, will not have been able to take appropriate action,” he adds.
Saint-Constant is also calling for increased powers to more easily keep threatening citizens away from municipal authorities.
“In the National Assembly, it’s been a long time since he [M. Vachon] would have been expelled and that he would no longer have the right to attend the deliberations if he had assaulted and threatened a deputy”, underlines for her part the clerk of the City of Saint-Constant, Ms.e Sophie Laflamme, who says she is “terrified” following the attack she suffered in the middle of the street.
“In our case, if the City does not go to court, I will be forced to hold the sessions with him a few meters from me,” worries the clerk.
Tristan Peloquin, The Press
Toxic climate and incivilities
The city of Saint-Constant is not the only one in Quebec to deal with a toxic climate linked to the behavior of certain citizens.
Abercorn, Eastern Townships
During the summer, six citizens of this village of 350 inhabitants were arrested for acts amounting to intimidation targeting the mayor and other elected officials. No charges were brought after investigation, but three councilors and the mayor resigned, citing “incivility, harassment, intimidation [et] disrespect of others [qui] reign in the town hall”.
Lac-Beauport, National Capital
Resident Marc Puyau was sentenced in February 2022 to two weeks in prison (which was suspended by the judge) and $2,500 in fines for repeatedly violating judgments prohibiting him from threatening elected officials. “The situation is so serious that we are imposing criminal sanctions on people who do not want to understand that this is a real problem,” lawyer Pier-Olivier Fradette, who also represents Saint-Constant in the case, told TVA. the case opposing him to Michel Vachon.
Thetford Mines, Chaudiere-Appalaches
In February 2022, the municipality’s police arrested a man well known to its services for criminal harassment, after he had published on social networks threatening remarks towards elected officials, which made them fear for their safety.