MONTREAL (CANADA)
Montreal Gazette [Montreal, Quebec, Canada]
August 31, 2026
By Abby McLaughlin
Judge finds Paméla Groleau’s accusations were false and her conduct showed “recklessness equivalent to malice.”
Retired Quebec cardinal Marc Ouellet won a $100,000 defamation case Monday against a former pastoral agent who accused him of sexual assault, after a Quebec Superior Court judge found her allegations were false.
The case stems from allegations Paméla Groleau made about four encounters with Ouellet between 2008 and 2010 that were later included in a 2022 class-action lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. Ouellet denied sexually assaulting Groleau and sued her for defamation months after the class action was filed.
“Ms. Groleau … did not act as a reasonable person,” Justice Martin Castonguay wrote in a 52-page decision issued Monday, adding that her actions showed “a very high degree of recklessness equivalent to malice.”
Castonguay ordered Groleau to pay Ouellet the full $100,000 he sought, plus interest and an additional indemnity dating from December 2022.
The judge was sharply critical of Groleau’s credibility, finding her account of the four encounters changed over time and was contradicted in important respects by evidence presented during a trial in Montreal in March.
Groleau, who worked as a pastoral agent in the Quebec City diocese, testified about four encounters with Ouellet while he was archbishop of Quebec. She described three as part of a progression leading to an incident in February 2010 following the ordination of a priest at Notre-Dame de Québec Basilica-Cathedral.
“His right hand caressed my back,” Groleau testified. “The hand went down to the top of my buttocks. He pressed down at the top of my buttocks. And I left.”
During cross-examination, Groleau said that encounter was the only one of the four she considered a sexual assault.
Castonguay concluded that Groleau’s allegations describing all four encounters were false. He pointed to changes in her accounts involving the duration and location of some interactions and where on her body she alleged Ouellet touched her.
The judge also rejected Groleau’s description of having felt “hunted” by Ouellet, noting their encounters occurred in public and there was no evidence he sought private meetings with her or contacted her by phone or email.
Castonguay found the context in which the allegations became public was also significant. The class action included numerous allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, many involving people who alleged they had been abused as children. The judge found Ouellet’s inclusion associated him with clergy accused of sexually abusing children and magnified the damage to his reputation.
The allegations drew international attention in 2022, in part because Ouellet was one of the Catholic Church’s most senior figures and had previously been considered a possible contender to become pope.
Ouellet served as archbishop of Quebec from 2002 to 2010 before moving to the Vatican, where he headed the office responsible for bishops. He retired in 2023.
In August 2022, Pope Francis said there were insufficient grounds to open a canonical investigation into Groleau’s allegations following a preliminary Vatican inquiry.
During the March trial, Ouellet said the allegations damaged his reputation, authority and health and that he brought the lawsuit to “restore my honour and my integrity.”
The judgment records Ouellet’s pledge to donate any money he receives from the ruling to efforts combating sexual abuse suffered by Indigenous people in Canada.