An alleged victim of a Catholic priest who allegedly abused dozens of boys in Cap-Pelé wants to know if the New Brunswick RCMP ever opened an investigation.
“We want to know some information about what the RCMP knew at that time,” said Victor Cormier.
Cormier is one of the many alleged victims of Camille Leger, who served as a priest in the Catholic parish of Sainte-Thérèse-d’Avila in Cap-Pelé from 1957 to 1980.
But now Leger wants to know if the RCMP knew about Leger’s abuse and filed a right to information request to try and find out.
“Why the RCMP didn’t do anything to stop him at the time? So that’s what we want to know, if they did something about it, did they go to him to talk to him, did they do anything about it? That would be our closure,” Cormier said.
A spokesperson for the New Brunswick RCMP said they cannot say if someone is being investigated unless they’ve been charged.
Cormier alleges that Leger sexually abused him when he was a boy. A civil suit, filed by Cormier against Leger’s estate and the Archbishop of Moncton, was settled out of court in March 2020. Leger died in 1990 and was never charged.
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The Diocese of Moncton apologized for Cormier’s actions in 2012 and recruited former Supreme Court of Canada justice Michel Bastarache to lead a confidential conciliatory process. That process awarded compensation between $15,000 and $300,000.
A search of New Brunswick’s court index turns up at least half a dozen other civil suits filed against Leger’s estate.
Cormier said he never went to the police with a criminal complaint because he spent years scared of what Leger would do if he spoke up. Cormier says Leger was a dominant figure in Cap-Pelé. He was heavily involved in Boy Scouts and is often credited with starting minor hockey in the village.
But in 2012, what had only been traded as rumors began to bubble to the surface. In 2012 village council decided to hold plebiscite on the name of the arena, which had been renamed after Leger in the late 1980s. Cormier said he and many others began to come forward for the first time.
Once the church acknowledged and apologized for Leger’s actions, council voted unanimously to change the name of the arena the next day.
Hector Doiron was deputy mayor at the time. He says the sign was going to be removed the morning after the vote, but it was gone within hours.
“There was so much intensity in the room that they wanted to get it removed right now, right then and there,” Doiron said.
“The firemen were on hand and said they could do it right now, and that’s what happened.”
Doiron says Leger casts a long shadow over Cap-Pelé, but he hopes the village has begun to learn from what happened over the course of two decades.
“You can’t let people in power, abuse their power,” he said.
For Cormier, he hopes that knowing if the RCMP could have done something to stop what he and others experienced will give a sense of closure.
“We just would like to know if the RCMP knew something about it at the time,” he said.
“And what did they do about it.”
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