The mayor of Longueuil revealed this year that she was the victim of former PQ MP Harold LeBel. She is one of our Personalities of the Year 2023, “Justice” category.
In 2023, “CF” became Catherine Fournier. Nearly three years after filing a complaint against her attacker, the mayor of Longueuil decided to get rid of her “heartache” by revealing in broad daylight that she was the victim of Harold LeBel.
The “well-considered, informed and voluntary” decision aimed to “publicly and openly discuss [son] experience through the justice system,” wrote the former MP for Marie-Victorin in a request to Judge Serge Francoeur, of the Superior Court of Quebec.
Since the indictment was filed in 2020, the complainant’s identity was protected by a publication ban. Part of the trial was held in Rimouski in the presence of M.me Fournier, who was then identified on court documents by the initials “CF”. In the media, it was written that the attacker maintained a “professional” relationship with his victim at the time of the events, nothing more. Both were deputies of the PQ caucus in the National Assembly.
Last March, a few months after Harold LeBel was sentenced to eight months in prison, Catherine Fournier sent a request to the court to lift the publication ban that affected her. “This is a process that would allow me to do useful work and [de] continue to move forward,” she wrote in her request to Judge Francoeur.
The following month, she revealed her name as part of the broadcast of a documentary on her time in the judicial system. She also took the opportunity to demand changes in the National Assembly. Mme Fournier particularly wants the creation of an “independent respondent” in Parliament, so that elected officials and their employees do not have to confide in their party after sexual misconduct.
“Out of the 125 deputies, there are 2 people who wrote to me,” lamented the mayor in an interview in April. “There was no public speaking out, even if only to [s’interroger] or open the discussion on the place of this person [M. LeBel] in the National Assembly, given the criminal charges. It’s an observation that I made… Then, everyone knew it was me. »
“We decided for me”
The elected official from Longueuil did not always want to name herself. In fact, she wrote in an open letter published this year in our pages, the “guarantee of anonymity is what [l]“convinced me to move forward” with her denunciation in 2020.
“I decided to file a complaint because I was previously assured that my identity would be protected, a possibility that I was previously unaware of,” said Mr.me Fournier. As a young, newly elected MP, Catherine Fournier did not want to “cause waves,” she said on condition of anonymity during the trial of Harold LeBel.
Now, there you have it. In fact, the guarantee of anonymity for the MP, who had in the meantime left the Parti Québécois, was never granted to her.
“62 minutes. This is how long it ultimately took between the arrest of my attacker […] and providing personally identifiable information to the media,” she wrote after the order was lifted this year. “At the end of the day, a columnist actually revealed my name live on television, as part of a program broadcast during prime time, throughout Quebec. »
“When I think about that day, my heart still hurts,” she lamented. “We decided for me. »
The victim of a sexual assault is automatically protected by the publication ban provided for in the Criminal Code. Whoever named Mme Fournier or disseminated information about her in 2020 therefore risked contravening the law. In November, two citizens were also accused of having broken the order, after investigations by the Sûreté du Québec. Sylvain Fortin and Stéphane Vigeant have both pleaded not guilty. The trial is scheduled to resume in January.
For Catherine Fournier, life as mayor continues. The 31-year-old elected official must manage the deer saga in Michel-Chartrand Park and deal with the housing shortage in Longueuil. She still calls for “taking responsibility” from the authorities in respecting publication bans.
“Known figures or not, there are real people behind the victims of sexual assault,” she wrote last April. “People with family and friends. People with feelings, motivations, aspirations and hopes. People who, by requesting recourse to the publication ban duly provided for in the Criminal Code, are making a choice that should belong only to them. »
The finalist: Ursula von der Leyen