It’s been a long time since I’ve read such an outrageous story. It affects a young participant in the Student Parliament in 2023: he was expelled from the event because rumors of past sexual misconduct caused “discomfort” among participants.
If you have not read Tristan Péloquin’s file1drop everything and go read this.
Context: the Quebec Student Parliament is a parliamentary simulation where young people compete, divided between Blues and Reds. The activity has existed since 1987.
The Press revealed the story on the basis of court documents (prosecutions are underway): the young man, designated as “Mr. Bergeron”, is expelled because a rumor (the origin of which we are still seeking) accuses (without details) of past sexual misconduct.
Informed of these allegations and lending them total veracity, a participant designated as “Mme Bélanger” then had a panic attack in his hotel room. The reason: Mr. Bergeron came to meet him…
Except that history will later say that she confused Mr. Bergeron with another participant. Oops.
Nevertheless: at least four participants lock themselves in their room, declaring that they no longer want to be in the same room as Mr. Bergeron.
What happens next is surreal. I quote Tristan’s text: “Les Bleu.es then requested the exclusion of the participant, a decision based in particular “on the expertise” of Samuel Vaillancourt, a legal technician from the Juripop clinic (specializing in domestic and sexual violence), who is part of the caucus. He is “able to put people at ease and then manage crises like this”, explains the president of the[Assemblée parlementaire étudiante du Québec], Hilal Pilavci, in his testimony. »
I emphasize here that no one has ever asked Mr. Bergeron to explain himself. No one has ever attempted to verify these rumors, no one has attempted to confirm or deny them.
No big deal: the young man was expelled from the Student Parliament. Reason ? His presence caused “discomfort” among participants.
The excluded man’s father, a lawyer, would later file a defamation suit against those involved in his son’s expulsion and against administrators of the Student Parliament.
This is where it gets even crazier. Even before the work of the Student Parliament, this Samuel Vaillancourt had started to spread unverified gossip about Mr. Bergeron, we can read in court documents filed as part of the defamation proceedings:
“Samuel Vaillancourt contacted the secretary of the Parliamentary Assembly of Quebec Students to denounce Mr. Bergeron: “First of all,” he wrote, “I would like to make a trauma warning regarding the subject of this conversation. It concerns questions of VACS (sexual violence) and harassment.” He then vaguely mentions, without naming Mr. Bergeron, events which allegedly took place “around three years ago”, based on the anonymous testimony “of a friend who witnessed (and experienced) a situation of sexual violence ”. »
Rumors, unverifiable hearsay, anonymity. None of this would hold up in a court of law, or in a journalistic investigation. No problem: for Mr. Vaillancourt, it was enough to launch a cabal.
What is striking about this saga is that people who should understand some elements of natural justice (like lawyers linked to the administration of the Youth Parliament and this Mr. Vaillancourt who works for Juripop) didn’t care at all.
All that mattered was the feeling based on absolutely nothing, it was the “discomfort” of participants who could not have explained what Mr. Bergeron was accused of.
The expulsion of Mr. Bergeron was not without consequences: this unfounded measure was used to have him banned from the Political Science Games of the University of Montreal… Decision that the Office of Respect for the Person of the ‘UdeM overturned.
This type of excess based on feelings is not justice, it is even the opposite of justice. It is popular justice which has nothing to do with the facts, everything to do with activism. And too bad if we break eggs – and reputations – in the process.
Too bad ?
I’m taking a detour back to 2019, when I recounted the ordeal of a young man wrongly accused on the Quebec internet of being an aggressor2 : he had been confused with another man, himself the target of allegations of sexual misconduct. Before checking, he was lynched.
The truth had finally come to the surface, in tatters. Some people apologized, but not all: “Victims of sexual assault are also traumatized,” wrote one torturer in justification, “and women really do what they can to protect themselves, they were wrong and It’s boring for him, but I will never say that it was the biggest mistake of my life to have wanted to be careful…”
I insist on this sentence, thrown out with the casualness which borders on a banal error: It’s boring for him…
I don’t agree: it’s especially boring for victims of sexual assault. Because false accusations are also used to discredit the real ones.
Let’s return to 2024: Tristan Péloquin presents today another case of this kind involving a UQAM student who was harassed, smeared and excluded by students who had decided – on the basis of no solid factual basis, yet – that he was a sexual assaulter3.
Here again, the case is brought to court.
Here again, a dynamic of lynching by a pack. Without commenting specifically on the case of UQAM, political scientist Eve Séguin offers this definition of mobbinga verb derived from the English word mobthe crowd.
I quote it: “The mobbing is a group policy that aims to get rid of a person in an organization. And to get there, all means are good. The group employs pack justice, which aims to isolate the target. I do not hesitate to speak of “organizational terrorism” because the people in the group who witness it realize that very quickly, if they do not participate, they too will become targets. People are scared. »
And the accusation of sexual assault is a weapon of choice for mob justice, according to Professor Eve Séguin: “We live in a neo-moralist society where, as soon as you touch sex, you can say whatever you want. What. It is one of the best weapons of the mobbing. In what I call the identity left, we very much associate sexuality with sexual harassment. Anything remotely related to sexuality is considered threatening to women. »
Two observations, in closing…
First, for all their faults, courts are based on facts. Not on militant prisms. An Alberta court, welcoming the progress of #metoo, recently restored the reputation of a Quebecer by serving this warning: before launching allegations, we must at least take the trouble to verify whether these allegations are founded4.
I hope for this young man, Mr. Bergeron, that the light will be shed in court, away from the far-fetched militant logic which excluded him from the Student Parliament, causing him numerous “traumas”, to surf on militant jargon.
Then, that a man like Samuel Vaillancourt works for the famous Juripop clinic, it takes away my desire to take Juripop seriously in his public interventions. That a guy so irresponsible with respect to the facts and the law can work in a legal clinic is truly appalling.
1. Consult Tristan Péloquin’s file
2. Read the column “Oops, bad Maxime! »
3. Read the article “Three students suspended for mobbing »
4. Read the column “Digital packs”