QUéBEC CITY (CANADA)
CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) [Toronto, Canada]
August 31, 2026
By CBC News
Judge orders Paméla Groleau to pay $100K to Cardinal Marc Ouellet
A Quebec Superior Court judge has ruled in favour of Cardinal Marc Ouellet in a defamation lawsuit brought against Paméla Groleau, ordering her to pay him $100,000 in damages.
Ouellet filed the lawsuit on the grounds that Groleau damaged his reputation, honour and dignity, after she named him in a 2022 class-action lawsuit alleging sexual misconduct by members of the Archdiocese of Quebec.
Groleau had alleged meeting the cardinal on several occasions between 2008 and 2010 while she was training or working as a lay pastoral agent for the Catholic Church and that Ouellet had engaged in various forms of inappropriate conduct toward her, including unwanted touching.
Groleau first reported her allegations anonymously in 2008 to a church advisory committee and later in a complaint directed to Pope Francis in 2021, which was rejected in 2022 — the same year she joined the class action.
Justice Martin Castonguay dismissed the accusations, finding Groleau’s version of events were not credible.
- Lawyer for Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet says accuser’s testimony lacks credibility
- Witness recounts feeling like a ‘prisoner’ in 1992 encounter with Quebec cardinal
In his 52-page decision Monday, Castonguay wrote Groleau acted “recklessly or even maliciously” toward the cardinal and did not act as a “reasonable person” would.
Castonguay wrote that Groleau, dissatisfied with the handling of her complaint to Pope Francis, chose to alter her version of events to attract public attention.
The judge noted that the evidence proved beyond a doubt that the allegations were unfounded and that Groleau herself eventually said she only considered one of the alleged interactions as sexual assault.
“Regarding that specific incident, Groleau admits to having altered her account to state that Cardinal Ouellet touched her buttocks, fully aware that the average person would interpret this as touching the curve of the buttocks,” Castonguay wrote, “which was not the case in reality, nor in her earlier versions.”
Groleau, he said, showed no regard for Ouellet’s rights, including his right to a good reputation, when she accused him of sexual misconduct in August 2022.
He said damage to Ouellet’s reputation was compounded by the fact that the class action against the Archdiocese of Quebec overwhelmingly involved clergy or lay people accused of being pedophiles.
In his decision, he explained that four conditions must be met to give rise to a defamation claim, including false allegations, allegations irrelevant to the dispute, allegations made maliciously or with such recklessness as to amount to malice, and allegations made without reasonable cause.
Court recognized ‘injustice’ Ouellet faced, lawyers say
During the trial held in March, Justin Wee, a lawyer for Groleau, had argued that his client did not defame Ouellet because her allegations were true and in making them, she did not intend to harm the cleric.
He also said that media attention surrounding the case could not be attributed to her.
Lawyers for Groleau told Radio-Canada Monday they would not be commenting and did not indicate if they would appeal the decision.
Dominique Ménard, a managing partner with LCM Avocats, the law firm representing Ouellet, issued a statement Monday saying, “We are pleased that the court recognized the injustice suffered by Cardinal Ouellet and that the fault committed against him now entitles him to reparation.”
The statement says the judgment reaffirms that, even within judicial proceedings, “serious allegations must be based on accurate and relevant facts, and stated with the rigour that their severity demands.”
Ouellet has committed to donating any sum received from the suit toward combating sexual abuse suffered by Indigenous people in Canada.
Written by Annabelle Olivier, with files from Radio-Canada and The Canadian Press