For decades, he reigned supreme over several villages on the North Shore. But few people knew then how much he had abused his power.
It is within the framework of the National Inquiry into Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in 2017, that the name of Alexis Joveneau, Oblate missionary father who worked on the North Shore from the 1950s, is publicly associated with sex crimes for the first time. Since then, the list of his victims, who have also started a collective action against the Oblate missionaries, has continued to grow. As also the variety of crimes he allegedly committed.
While he was long considered “a god” by the inhabitants of the communities where he reigned, Father Joveneau has since been renamed “the devil of the North Shore”.
Originally from Belgium, the monk visited the Côte-Nord for the first time in 1953, before settling there a few years later, until his death in 1992. After devoting a book to his misdeeds, the journalist Magalie Lapointe has teamed up with filmmaker Jani Bellefleur-Kaltush to shoot a five-episode documentary series on the subject, available on Vrai.
Originally from Nutashkuan, Innu Jani Bellefleur-Kaltush had heard rumors about Father Joveneau’s actions since adolescence. “Everyone had heard of it,” she said. But that was not a topic we talked about. We didn’t talk about it openly. »
Until Noëlla Mark as well as Mary Mark and Thérèse Lalo denounced in 2017, during the National Inquiry, the touching and abuse that had been imposed on them by the priest.
Varied and numerous abuses
After publishing a series of articles on the subject in The Journal of Montreal,Magalie Lapointe went for the first time, in 2018, to the community of Unamen Shipu, formerly La Romaine, where the Oblate father, who spoke fluent Innu, was established. This is where a quest begins which will demonstrate in particular that Alexis Joveneau sexually assaulted women, men and children, Innu and non-Aboriginal, of the community, but that he had also misappropriated funds intended for the Innu that he was supposed to protect. The investigation also reveals that the religious would have used blackmail to deport the Innu living in the community of Pakua Shipi, formerly called Saint-Augustin, by threatening to cut off their government checks if they did not move to Unamen Shipu.
“He treated the people of Pakua Shipi as delinquents,” adds Magalie Lapointe. To achieve his ends, Father Joveneau also carried out forced marriages between members of the two communities.
All these abuses were possible because he was the one who controlled all the mail circulating in his community, that he acted as an interpreter on their behalf, and also because he made his victims believe that they would go to hell if they did not obey his orders.
Everything took place in communities animated by great religious fervor.
In Natashkuan, where Father Joveneau went to say Mass on occasion, “a good 90% of the Innu are religious,” estimates Jani Bellefleur-Kaltush. She herself disassociated herself from religion during filming. “I took a foot out of religious belief after the first trip,” she says.
In fact, Father Joveneau’s influence still seems to be felt in the community. In the documentary, Dominique Pierre, Noëlla Mark’s brother, begins by discrediting his sister before admitting that Father Joveneau, with whom he worked for a long time, committed abuse.
The communities remain divided, notes Jani Bellefleur-Kaltush, between “pro-Joveneau” and “anti-Joveneau”.
Several of these “pro-Joveneau” seem to have changed their tune, however, since the first allegations surfaced. This is the case, for example, of a nun, Sister Armande Dumas, who worked closely with Father Joveneau. She refused to grant an interview to Magalie Lapointe, but she nevertheless dropped that these discoveries were “just the tip of the iceberg”.
Died in 1992, Father Alexis Joveneau was never publicly denounced during his lifetime. He is also buried at Unamen Shipu, where victims complain of seeing his grave, day after day, among those of his prey.