News School trips turned nightmare: A Montreal principal's accusers share their stories

By T'Cha Dunlevy Montreal Gazette
June 20, 2025 6:00 AM
Warning: This story includes graphic content.
Carl* says he remembers lying on the top bunk when someone entered the cabin he shared with five other boys. In the darkness, he recalls, he recognized his principal, Mr. Baugniet.
It was May 1985, during FACE school's annual week-long Grade 5 trip to Camp Kanawana, in the Laurentian mountains near St-Sauveur.
Carl says he saw Baugniet walk over and sit on a boy's bed.
Baugniet began 'caressing this kid and talking to him,' Carl told The Gazette.
'I remember gasping, us all looking at each other, feeling powerless. There's nothing we can do; he's our f---ing principal,' he said. 'That's when he comes for me.'
Carl says he remains haunted by what happened next; he is not alone.
An investigation by The Gazette reveals a troubling timeline of sexual abuse allegations by former students spanning a 20-year period during which Phillip Baugniet was principal at FACE — a school he co-founded in downtown Montreal that draws children from both the English and French sectors with its arts-enhanced curriculum — and Victoria School, out of which FACE was created in 1975.
Over the course of two years, The Gazette conducted dozens of interviews with alleged victims and witnesses, and hundreds of online exchanges with people who knew Baugniet, were students under his guard or employees of public institutions at the time. Many people asked not to be identified to protect their privacy, some out of fear of reprisals. The Gazette agreed to shield their identities; pseudonyms are denoted by an asterisk.
The Gazette investigation reveals that many figures of authority knew about the allegations made against Baugniet while he was at FACE, including parents, teachers, youth protection officials, police and those at the highest levels of the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal (PSBGM). Yet he remained principal until 1991.
Several alleged victims and witnesses recount strikingly similar details about their former principal's actions during supervised school trips as well as visits to Baugniet's hobby farm in Ontario by invitation. Many say they were abused by Baugniet in their bed, at or after lights out.
The Gazette also uncovered alarming information, which has never been previously reported, regarding a shocking tragedy that was given only cursory media attention at the time: the death of a 13-year-old Victoria School student during a visit to Baugniet's farm in 1973.
Rumours about Baugniet circulated for decades, yet he was lauded as a cultural and pedagogical visionary who had started one of Montreal's most cherished schools.
He made headlines in February 2023 after a class action lawsuit was launched by former students alleging sexual abuse during a period spanning from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. The suit claimed $16.2 million in damages and interest from Baugniet and the English Montreal School Board (EMSB), which replaced the PSBGM in 1998; neither party filed a defence.
The EMSB declined to comment as the class action is before the courts.
The Gazette attempted to obtain a response from Baugniet on multiple occasions — by phone, email and in person — but he never replied.
In January, Baugniet went on trial in Ontario Court, where he faced 17 charges involving eight children for events alleged to have occurred primarily during visits to his farm in the 1970s and '80s. He pleaded not guilty on all counts.
Baugniet was also facing two charges in Quebec Court related to events involving a former student at Lachine High School around 1970. Trial dates had yet to be set.
Baugniet had a constitutional right to silence in the context of the charges against him, and he was presumed innocent until proven guilty.
He died on April 23, the day before his Ontario trial was set to resume after a two-month pause, with one last complainant scheduled to testify. Baugniet had been appearing via Zoom because of health issues. He was 82.
Both criminal proceedings were ended soon after. The class action is ongoing.
What follows is an in-depth account of what The Gazette discovered.
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Several former FACE students, now around 50 years old, shared recollections of Baugniet's behaviour on the Grade 5 trip to Camp Kanawana in 1985, when they were 10 or 11. The situations they describe follow a distressing pattern and have never been reported before.
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Baugniet came back to the cabin a second night, according to Carl.
'By then we know the sound of the clicking when he opens the door,' he said. 'He would talk to us in a soft voice, say 'How was your day?' Stuff like that. It seemed like just a nice thing, until he goes down there.'
Carl says Baugniet initially rubbed his stomach, then moved his hand lower, to the boy's genitals.
'It was the first time I was ever touched, so it stayed with me.'
Carl says he blocked out all memory of the experience after returning home, but his personality changed.
'I was off,' he recalled. 'You don't really know what happened. You just feel super depressed, like death.'
When he was 19, his mother sent him to a therapist and the memories came flooding back.
In an interview with The Gazette, Carl's mother said her son was different following the camp trip; and that after approximately six sessions with the therapist, he told her what Baugniet had done.
For a time, Carl fantasized about revenge.
When he got married, at 38, he confided in his wife about the touching and that he worried about having kids of his own.
'She said, 'You're never going to do anything to them,'' he remembered, holding back tears. 'Her trust in me … gave me a lot of strength.'
The two are now divorced. His ex-wife confirmed their conversation to The Gazette.
Carl says he remains self-conscious about physical contact with children, and hyper-vigilant toward adults around his kids.
'I've had a lot of people talk to me about trauma and how to deal with it,' he said. 'But at the end of the day, you can't really do anything. It stays with you.'
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Edward* recalls being on the bottom bunk when he saw Baugniet enter his cabin.
The principal didn't turn on the light, which Edward says gave him a bad feeling.
Baugniet sat on his friend Jonathan*'s bed, he recalled. Edward lay there for a moment in silence, then whispered to Jonathan in Spanish.
'I said, 'Hey Jonathan, are you awake?'' Edward recounted.
'Jonathan said, 'Yes.''
'I said, 'Is Baugniet next to you?'
'He said, 'Yes.'
'I said, 'Is he on your bed?'
'He said, 'Yes.'
'I said, 'Is he touching you?'
'He said, 'Yes.''
Looking back now, Edward says he wishes he had jumped up, turned on the light and tried to help his friend.
'At that moment, we were in panic mode,' he explained. 'Nobody moved.'
The Gazette spoke with Jonathan, who acknowledged an interaction with Baugniet at the camp, then ended the call and stopped responding to The Gazette's subsequent attempts to contact him.
Ben* was not in the same cabin as his friends but recalls being told about what happened.
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Luna* remembers wearing her light-blue jogging suit when she got up from the campfire and began walking back to her cabin. Out of the darkness, she says, Baugniet appeared next to her. He asked how she was doing and other questions she found strange given 'the man didn't often talk with us.'
As they proceeded along the path, she felt her principal's hand graze her buttocks: 'He thought I didn't notice.'
According to Luna, Baugniet twice touched her breasts over her clothes, including when they were face to face.
Luna was 11, but 'I looked older,' she noted. 'I was quite developed.'
Years later, at a mini reunion of FACE students in 2019, Luna recalls a former classmate telling her about what happened to Jonathan, and she shared memories of her own encounter.
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Sylvie* says there was alcohol on Baugniet's breath when the principal came into the girls' cabin where she was sleeping.
'He French-kissed me, with full spit,' she said. 'He felt my breasts, even though I had no breasts. He put his hands up my shirt. Then he left.'
She remains shaken by the memory.
'He was disgusting, and he smelled.'
Three of Sylvie's former classmates confirmed she told them about the incident, including Ève Dussault. Ève's mother, Louisette Dussault, who died in March 2023, starred on the hit children's television show Passe-Partout.
'I remember in our cabin, we were panicked,' Dussault recalled. 'We were afraid he would come in to say goodnight.'
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Émile* remembers Baugniet entering his cabin while he and his friends were in their beds joking around after curfew.
'He said, 'Hey guys, calm down,'' Émile recounted. 'He sat on my bed and rubbed my tummy.'
Émile pushed the principal's hand away.
'I said, 'Hey!''
Baugniet immediately got up and told everyone to go to sleep, then left, according to Émile.
'It was inappropriate,' he said, 'but I just remember saying to my friends he was such an idiot.'
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Jumal Lord recalls Baugniet coming into his cabin at bedtime and tickling the boys.
'He starts with his 'Coochy coochy coo' to everybody,' Lord said. 'He comes to my bunk, and he tickles me on my chest ... then he tries to tickle my stomach.'
Lord covered himself. 'I didn't want to be tickled,' he said. 'I knew it was wrong because nobody is supposed to touch anybody — that's what my dad taught me.'
Baugniet touched his friend Frédéric* — and Frédéric objected, Lord recalled. Baugniet 'was thrown off' and left, according to Lord; but Frédéric remained upset, saying he was going to tell his parents.
The Gazette contacted Frédéric, who answered an initial message then stopped responding after being asked about the incident.
In his teens, Lord developed a drug habit — 'I don't know if it was because of that,' he said — and later went to rehab. He was hesitant to talk to women and to enter relationships.
'You question your own identity,' he said. 'Why would this guy touch me and my friends?'
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On a Friday afternoon one year later, in May 1986, parents stood outside FACE school waiting for their children to return from the annual Grade 5 trip to Camp Kanawana.
Suzanne Giroux was among them on University St. as the school bus pulled up.
Her 10-year-old son, Antoine Mongrain, stepped off the bus and ran to her crying, saying he had been 'very afraid' his principal was going to rape him, The Gazette has learned.
A frenzy ensued as other children debriefed their parents. Giroux, who was a reporter at Radio-Canada, listened as a friend of her son's told her other students had complained about being abused by Baugniet the previous year.
Giroux pieced together her son's story in the days and weeks that followed. She kept meticulous handwritten notes, which The Gazette obtained, that provide a valuable timeline of what happened during that trip.
Giroux died in 2020 but her son, now 49, agreed to revisit the events in an interview.
On the last evening at Camp Kanawana, Mongrain left a large gathering to fetch his flashlight.
Kids were staying in a mix of cabins and tents. Mongrain remembers entering the military-style tent he shared with other boys and seeing Baugniet seated with his arm around a schoolmate, who looked uncomfortable.
Mongrain says the principal put his free arm around him, asked his name and how long he had been at the school ('Since kindergarten,' Mongrain recalled telling him, though he had skipped a grade).
As they talked, Mongrain recalled, Baugniet began rubbing his hand up and down Mongrain's back over his clothes, across his stomach and gradually lower, near his buttocks and groin.
'It's creepy — that you know at 10 years old,' Mongrain said. 'But where does a sexual assault begin?'
Mongrain says he felt trapped. Then another boy, whom Mongrain described as a tough kid, entered the tent. When Baugniet tried the same thing on the newcomer, the boy removed the principal's hand, Mongrain recounted; the spell broken, he and the third boy managed to leave.
Mongrain spoke to his English teacher, Shirley Perlman, who was a chaperone on the trip. According to Giroux's notes, Perlman told her in a phone call a few days later that she knew Mongrain 'could not have fabricated such a story.'
Perlman told Giroux that Mongrain became so distraught while talking to her that he began hyperventilating and fainted; he woke up shortly after and started to cry, then vomited.
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At least six former students interviewed by The Gazette recalled a panic spreading through the camp that evening about a rumour 'Mr. Baugniet' had touched a boy inappropriately.
Several named Mongrain as the boy in question. Three saw Mongrain and other kids crying.
'We were scared,' Amelia Fuentes said. 'That night, we all went to bed early.'
Four people, in separate interviews, remembered barricading their cabin door, afraid Baugniet would come for them.
According to Giroux's notes, Perlman let Mongrain and a few friends sleep in a common area under her supervision. Perlman died in 2015, but a fellow teacher — who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals — remembers a conversation with her.
One Monday morning, the teacher arrived to find students in distress in the classroom, saying, 'Baugniet molested kids at camp.' The teacher later saw Perlman in the staff room and shared what the students had said.
'I remember it perfectly,' the teacher said: Perlman 'burst into tears, dropped her cup and left the room crying, saying Baugniet 'promised me he'd get help.''
Former FACE art teacher Marie-Josée Normandin was at Camp Kanawana as a chaperone in 1986. She recalls the panic — and how she felt frustrated at being left in the dark.
'We heard rumours, but nothing concrete,' Normandin said. 'That led us to believe there had been (sexual) touching, but we didn't have more details.'
She remembers FACE English teacher and camp director Jim Stiller gathering the students in one building and teachers in another and speaking to them separately.
'He didn't explain what happened,' she said, 'just that we shouldn't talk and shouldn't ask questions. … It was unpleasant. … It felt like they took us for idiots.'
In an interview with The Gazette, Stiller said he had no memory of any situation involving Baugniet at Kanawana, nor of a panic at the camp.
Normandin recalls that when the school buses brought everyone back to the city that Friday, Lilly Urban, vice-principal for FACE's primary grades, who died in 2004, was standing on the sidewalk with the parents. Teachers were told to wait on the bus, Normandin said, while Urban was briefed.
Normandin recalled Urban uttering Baugniet's name in despair: 'I heard her say, 'Oh, Phillip' – as if to say, 'How could you get yourself into this again?' That's the impression it gave, that it wasn't the first time; because otherwise it would have been a big surprise.'
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In the weeks following her son's return, Giroux began tracking down students from the previous year's trip to Camp Kanawana.
Her notes include names and phone numbers of alleged victims, their parents and potential witnesses, and people she spoke to at various public institutions.
The names of Carl, Edward, Jonathan, Ben and Émile all appear in her notes, as do the names of teachers Jim Stiller and Shirley Perlman.
Giroux met with youth protection and was advised to contact police nearest to where the events occurred. In the week of June 24, 1986, she filed a complaint with the Sûreté du Québec in St-Jérôme.
According to documents obtained by The Gazette, SQ investigators met with Baugniet, who denied the allegations, and interviewed Mongrain and other children before concluding it was likely a case of 'mass hysteria at the school.'
Police sent their findings to the Crown prosecutor in St-Jérôme, who deemed there was insufficient evidence to press charges.
Things stalled until September 1987, when Giroux discovered more allegations about Baugniet involving two boys from FACE's English side during a trip to his farm in the spring of 1986 — the same year her son went to Camp Kanawana.
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Adam*, now 49, says he was sexually abused by Baugniet on that Grade 4 trip to the principal's farm in 1986. He recalls, 'as clear as day,' a troubling interaction with Baugniet on the first night of a two-night stay.
Adam and other children were sleeping in the hay loft of a barn on the property, when he says he was awoken by a flashlight in his face.
'It was Mr. Baugniet,' Adam told The Gazette. 'He said something along the lines of, 'You can't sleep,' and about taking me to the house.'
Baugniet picked him up, Adam said.
'As he carried me, he placed his hand on the backside of my pants … under my pants, on my bare bottom,' he remembered. 'I pretty much froze.'
According to Adam, Baugniet brought him to his bedroom and placed him on his bed, where the principal slept beside him.
'I just lay perfectly still all night,' he recalled.
Adam says he was not touched by Baugniet on the second night; but when he woke up in the hay loft on the final morning, he noticed another boy was missing. Later that day, the two boys talked.
'We knew it wasn't right,' Adam said.
Upon returning to Montreal, he remembered, the boys told a teacher. Their parents were notified.
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On Oct. 13, 1987, at 7:30 p.m., Giroux assembled a group of parents of alleged victims for a two-hour meeting with children's rights lawyer Joanne Doucet.
Giroux's notes from the meeting mention contacting youth protection and include a strategy for the parents consisting of a 'police investigation' and going to the school board 'with precise facts.'
Her notes show she had communicated with PSBGM commissioner Ivan Livingstone, and that others at the school board were aware of the situation: Livingstone had contacted Dan De Silva, regional director for the PSBGM in charge of FACE, about Baugniet; he also wrote to school board lawyer Claude Le Corre. De Silva died in 2019. Le Corre died in 2020.
In an interview with The Gazette, Livingstone, 94, recalled discussing the allegations against Baugniet with other PSBGM commissioners, but he did not remember being directly involved in the file.
Among the people at the meeting with Doucet, according to Giroux's notes, were Adam and his mother.
Adam's mom filed a complaint with Montreal police on Nov. 10, 1987. Adam recalls investigators visiting his home frequently in the months that followed but says they 'kept hitting roadblocks.' Since the alleged events took place in Ontario, a new complaint would have to be filed with Cornwall police and the whole process begun anew.
'Our parents didn't want to put the added stress on us children of going to Ontario over and over,' he said, and so the matter was dropped.
Documents obtained by The Gazette confirm the jurisdictional issue.
Adam recalls the Montreal officers being 'very frustrated' and 'apologizing multiple times.'
During this period, he says his mother sent him to monthly group therapy sessions at the Montreal Children's Hospital for victims of abuse, which he attended for three or four years.
'Looking back, it helped me cope,' Adam said, 'to not let this be a defining moment in my life.'
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The most significant development to emerge from the meeting Giroux organized between the parents and Doucet was the lawyer's decision to file a complaint with the Comité de la protection de la jeunesse (CPJ), an agency that was part of Quebec's Ministry of Justice and which was later folded into the Quebec Human Rights Commission.
On July 25, 1988, in response to Doucet's complaint, the CPJ launched an investigation into how FACE staff and the PSBGM handled the allegations made against Baugniet by Mongrain and four other children.
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Unbeknownst to Giroux, her efforts echoed that of another FACE mother, who had clashed with Baugniet a decade earlier.
Mary*'s son Peter* was among the first group of students to attend FACE (or FACES, as it was then called) when Baugniet co-founded the school in 1975. Mary had known Baugniet since the early 1960s, when they were teachers at a Montreal high school and would drive to work together.
Peter was an intelligent child who loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian. In the spring of 1976, Baugniet invited the 12-year-old to his farm to see the animals. As the principal was a family friend, Mary and her husband Michael* thought nothing of it. But when Peter returned from the overnight visit, he asked his mother if they could speak.
'He said, 'I have something to tell you, but you mustn't tell daddy,'' Mary told The Gazette.
According to Mary, who is now in her 80s, Peter said he had shared a bed with Baugniet and the principal had fondled his genitals.
'He didn't go into a lot of details, and I didn't want to push it,' she said, 'but (Baugniet) molested him.'
Mary told her husband. Peter was kept home from school the following day, and Mary called Baugniet to demand they meet.
At the meeting, Mary says she informed Baugniet that she and Michael were ready to go to police but their son had asked them not to. Should the boy change his mind, she recalled warning the principal, they would prosecute him 'to the full extent of the law.'
Baugniet reacted strongly, according to Mary.
'He was like an old colonel, blustering, kind of a pompous twit, really. He tried to bully me, but I'm not bully-able. I said, 'That's it, you're on notice.''
Mary and Michael withdrew Peter from FACE. They took him to a therapist but their son was never the same, she said. In his teens, he developed an addiction problem and anger management issues. He went to university but dropped out.
'Peter has led a life — he's not exactly a vagrant, but he's not tethered down,' Mary noted. 'He never married; he had a lot of failed relationships. I put that all down to this situation. I blame Baugniet for that.'
In the year following the alleged abuse, Mary says she told two people at the PSBGM — director general Marcel Fox and commissioner Micki Bregman — about what happened but nothing was done.
'I really felt they lacked guts; they lacked moral integrity,' she said.
Fox died in 2015. In a phone interview with The Gazette, Bregman said she had no recollection of being told about the allegations.
In the early 2000s, according to Mary, Baugniet showed up at her ex-husband Michael's funeral but was asked to leave. A friend of the family confirmed the story, as did Peter's sibling. The sibling remembers being warned by their parents 'not to be alone with Baugniet.'
The Gazette spoke with a friend of Mary's, who remembered Mary telling her what happened at the farm.
'I knew Mary and the family well,' she said. 'This had a very big effect.'
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Baugniet bought his farmhouse in December 1972. Located on a sleepy stretch of dirt road in Lunenburg, Ont., surrounded by weeping willows, barns and fields, it had the makings of a haven of tranquility. It is here that Baugniet sexually abused multiple children over the next two decades, according to multiple sources.
And it is here that a boy died. Baugniet had owned the property less than five months when 13-year-old Victoria School student Christian Ventela was killed in a horrific accident on the property.
Christian fell from the bucket of a front-end loader his principal was driving on April 19, 1973. The tractor's rear wheel 'crushed the boy's head, killing him instantly,' according to an item in the Ottawa Citizen. Ontario Provincial Police investigated, news clippings indicate, but no charges were laid. Two other Victoria School students, Sheldon Melrose and David Wall, were also in the bucket but survived. The boys were visiting the farm at the principal's invitation.
Reached by The Gazette, Wall, who is now 65, said he 'remembered perfectly' what happened. He was 13 and it was his first time at the farm. Baugniet had taken the boys to do some work outside and they were heading back in the late afternoon.
'We were driving down the dirt road in the scoop of the tractor,' Wall said. 'I was sitting on the left-hand side, Sheldon was sitting in the middle, and Chris was on the right-hand side.'
Baugniet raised and lowered the scoop of the tractor once or twice as 'a game,' according to Wall, when the scoop suddenly opened.
'I remember thinking, 'Jump to the left,' and hitting the dirt road and rolling,' he said. 'The tractor went another 20 to 30 feet. I remember when it came to a stop, Sheldon jumping off and running back yelling, 'Chris!'
'That's when I noticed Chris was in the middle of the road and he was dead. ... The back of his head was open. There was no doubt. I remember Mr. Baugniet coming back and he put his coat over Chris's face and head.'
Christian was an elite skier and a popular kid, his sister Sharon Ventela told The Gazette. Their parents, who owned Siren's ski shop in Montreal, were out of the country when he died.
Ventela, who was 14 at the time, was home with her younger brother Karl when police knocked at the door and told their godmother the news.
Christian's death 'destroyed my family,' Ventela said. 'My mother went and sat on the couch for two years. It was terrible.'
Sharon and Karl Ventela are now estranged. Karl did not respond to phone messages left by The Gazette.
Sharon Ventela recalled an inquiry into Christian's death, at which she says her parents, who were friends with Baugniet, 'testified on his behalf.'
Wall also recalled the inquiry, which he and Melrose attended. The boys sat at the back of the room.
'I remember the judge saying — there was some reference to the tractor scoop being raised and lowered, and Mr. Baugniet denied that,' he said. 'I remember thinking, 'Well, no.' ... He raised and lowered the scoop. Both Sheldon and I later said, 'He raised the scoop.''
Wall remembered one other detail about that fateful afternoon. Following Christian's death, he recalled someone 'gave us a pill, which turned out to be a sleeping pill.'
Melrose died in November 2022, but The Gazette spoke to his wife. Lisa* shared her late husband's story on the condition that her name not be used.
Lisa says her husband told her Baugniet's first call following Christian's death was not to emergency services but to his brother Robert, a navy reserve officer who lived in Westmount and worked in public relations, and that Robert drove to the farm immediately.
Melrose and Wall were sedated following the brother's arrival, according to Lisa.
'Phillip said, 'Please take this — it's something to make you go to sleep so you can forget what just happened.''
After the boys took the sedative, she recounted, 'Phillip said, 'Now we have to call the cops.''
The two boys were unconscious when police arrived and were never questioned, according to Lisa. Robert Baugniet died in January 2023.
It was not Melrose's first time at the farm, according to his wife. Baugniet had befriended his mother Thelma, who was a widow on welfare, Lisa said; the principal would bring Thelma cigarettes and food and take Melrose to his farm on weekends.
Melrose was sexually abused by Baugniet for more than a year while he was a student at Victoria School, according to Lisa.
'All the molestation happened at the farm,' she said.
In 2019, after having lost touch for decades, Melrose and Sharon Ventela reconnected, and he told her about the sexual abuse.
'(Baugniet) definitely abused Sheldon over a period of time at the farm,' Ventela said. 'This was out of Sheldon's mouth.'
Lisa said her husband talked openly in his later years about the abuse, and he warned other parents to keep an eye on adults around their children.
Melrose spoke to a Montreal police investigator in the weeks before he died, Lisa recalled: 'Sheldon was prepared to press charges.'
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After Christian's death, Baugniet returned to work at Victoria School, where he remained a popular figure. The Gazette spoke with several former students whose recollections of their principal were emphatically positive.
Steve Kanavos says he was good friends with Christian and another boy Will* — and that Baugniet would bring the three of them to eat at A&W.
'He used to have a convertible,' Kanavos said.
Kanavos was unaware of the sexual abuse allegations against Baugniet until The Gazette contacted him. He recalls being invited to the farm the weekend Christian died.
'The only reason I didn't go is my parents wouldn't let me,' he said.
Kanavos attended Christian's funeral.
'He was cremated,' he recalled.
Baugniet took a month off following the death, he noted.
Kanavos played saxophone in the school orchestra and remembers Baugniet helping get him into Westmount High School.
'He was one of the best people somebody could encounter in education,' said Kanavos, who had been Facebook friends with Baugniet. 'He was perfect.'
Contacted by The Gazette, Will responded via text message: 'As the case is in the courts, I won't comment until a judgment is rendered.'
Two women, Robin Grier and Debbie MacDonald, wondered why only boys were invited to the farm.
'I always felt left out,' said Grier, who played clarinet and 'seriously f---ing adored' Baugniet. 'He was an incredibly intense and passionate man. He would direct the orchestra in a three-piece, pinstriped suit. He would come to people's houses to chat when he was concerned about students. I remember him sitting at the kitchen table with my parents over a drink. He was very persuasive.'
Grier's opinion of her former principal changed after she learned of the allegations.
'It's been difficult and emotional for me to realize there was this disconnect, and there were two completely different sides to this person,' she said.
MacDonald too was Facebook friends with Baugniet. Her former principal was 'one of the first decent male role models in my life,' who encouraged her interest in writing, she said.
She recalls the shock at school over Christian's death and says Baugniet took 'three or four weeks off' afterward.
'Everyone felt bad for (Christian's younger brother) Karl,' who was in her class, MacDonald said. 'Mostly we were trying not to talk about it so as not to cause Karl any discomfort.'
Despite the reverence the principal inspired, rumours circulated.
Michele Hoffman recalls being told by her mother to stay away from Baugniet, and that 'he was touching the boys.'
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Baugniet continued inviting boys to his farm after Christian died.
Another Victoria School student, Mark, says he was invited there 'within six months' of Christian's death, often with other boys, and was 'abused on numerous occasions' by his principal.
Mark reached out to The Gazette after reading about Baugniet in the newspaper. The Gazette decided to include the 63-year-old's account because it contains details echoed by others that have never been reported before.
Mark agreed to be identified by his first name but asked that his last name be withheld because he doesn't want his family to discover the abuse he says he suffered. He has never told anyone about these events, he explained.
Mark was a tall and athletic 12-year-old who liked skiing, he says, so Baugniet put him in charge of equipment for school ski trips.
At the farm, he recalls, Baugniet let him drive the tractor and use his chainsaw, which thrilled the boy. Looking back, Mark believes he was being groomed.
Nothing happened on the first couple visits to the farm; but on the third trip, according to Mark, the principal entered the room where he was sleeping and said, 'Time for a massage.'
Baugniet masturbated while massaging him, according to Mark.
It happened three times over the week-long visit — and on several occasions over a two-year period, Mark said.
The principal called it 'the Baugniet massage,' he noted.
'After two years, I thought, 'This is wrong,'' he said. 'I knew what he was doing. I would wake up in the morning and there would be droplets of his semen on the floor.'
Baugniet's parents were often at the farm, according to Mark, as was Baugniet's brother, Robert.
Mark says he noticed tension between Baugniet and his brother and wondered if his family suspected what was happening.
At one point, Mark's mother expressed concern about her son's frequent trips to the farm.
'She asked, 'Is this all okay, Mark?' I said, 'Yeah, it's absolutely fine.''
When he was around 13, Mark's family moved to Nova Scotia, after which he says Baugniet called and offered to fly him in to visit the farm. Once there, his former principal 'tried again' to touch him, according to Mark.
'I said, 'No, that's enough. You're not doing this again. I'd like to go home now.''
Baugniet asked what was the matter, Mark recalled.
'I said, 'You know what's the matter. You lured me down here with tractors and chainsaws.'
'I said, 'Something's wrong with you.'
'He said, 'No there isn't.'
'I said, 'Yeah, there is.' I left the next day.'
All these years later, Mark says, 'there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about it.'
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Filed in Quebec Superior Court on Sept. 24, 2024, the originating application of the class action lawsuit contains the statements of three other former Victoria School students, all now in their early 60s, who say they were sexually abused at Baugniet's farm and elsewhere in the 16 months following Christian's death.
In the spring of 1974, Baugniet is alleged to have sexually abused a Grade 6 Victoria School student, referred to as Member #2 in the class action suit, on four occasions at his farm.
Baugniet is also alleged to have sodomized Member #2's 13-year-old brother, Member #3, several times that summer at the farm, often while drunk, following which he is said to have threatened to kill the boy if he told anyone.
In addition to being principal, Baugniet was conductor of the Victoria School orchestra during the 1973-74 school year. On a trip outside the city, he is alleged to have entered the dormitory where the children were sleeping and fondled the genitals of Member #4, who was 10 at the time. According to Member #4's statement, Baugniet sexually abused him again on a trip to his farm, including on the car ride there, in Baugniet's bed and during a tractor ride.
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Baugniet was born in 1942 and grew up in London, England, where he attended Dulwich College, an elite boys' school. He moved to Montreal with his family around 1957 and taught at Mount Royal High School in the early 1960s.
According to an item published in The Gazette, Baugniet was supervising children in the Laurentians in 1966, as director of the new Camp Bella Coola for boys.
The earliest allegations of sexual abuse date back to Baugniet's time as a teacher at Lachine High School, where he stage-directed musical and theatre productions as part of the MAD (music, art, drama) program he inaugurated with two fellow teachers who later joined him at FACE.
The class action lawsuit includes the account of Member #5. The man, now in his 60s, says that Baugniet abused him at Lachine High School during the 1970-71 school year, when he was 12.
Baugniet, who was the boy's drama teacher, invited him to meet in a dressing room one evening after class, Member #5 states. Baugniet is alleged to have removed the boy's clothing and given him a full-body massage. In subsequent encounters, according to Member #5, Baugniet penetrated the boy's anus with his finger and attempted to sodomize him.
The court document alleges Baugniet told the boy they had to continue meeting or the boy would never become a good actor.
Scarred by the incidents, the document says, the boy withdrew from drama class and lost interest in school.
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In 1975, Baugniet co-founded FACES. The acronym stood for Fine Arts Core Elementary School.
Located in the former Victoria School building on de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., FACES initially welcomed students from kindergarten to Grade 7. The school expanded to Grade 11 over the next half-decade as the student population increased from 650 to 1,000. The name was shortened to FACE, for Fine Arts Core Education. Classes migrated to the old High School of Montreal building on University St. in the late 1970s.
In 1977, Baugniet married a widow with two daughters attending FACE. The couple had two more children, who later went to the school.
FACE alumni include music artists Rufus Wainwright, Melissa Auf der Maur and Mitsou, actors Jay Baruchel and Mariloup Wolfe, author Fanny Britt and former U.S. vice-president Kamala Harris. (This reporter also attended FACE from 1982 to 1988.)
The principal was a cultish figure at FACE, revered for the arts-based curriculum and vibrant community he helped create. The Gazette spoke with more than two dozen former FACE teachers and administrators, approximately half of whom, though concerned by the allegations in the class action lawsuit, described Baugniet with terms including 'mentor,' 'friend,' 'great pedagogue' and 'a genius to have created that school.'
Half said they knew nothing about the allegations at the time. Others said they heard rumours, a few using words like 'quashed' and 'omertà' to describe the code of silence that reigned.
At least five teachers referred to Baugniet having an inner circle of friends at the school consisting primarily of teachers on FACE's English side who called him 'Phil.'
A dozen former teachers and administrators said Baugniet liked to drink; five (including two former administrators) described him as an alcoholic. According to sources, he was known to keep bottles of alcohol in his office, where he would invite a group of mostly male teachers for drinks on Friday afternoons.
A series of troubling events took place at FACE in the 1980s. A librarian was sexually assaulted by an intruder in 1983. A flasher entered the building mid-decade; Baugniet chased the man down the street with a baseball bat, according to a female student who witnessed the incident and recalls thinking of her principal as 'a hero.' In September 1987, a teacher in the adjoining adult education program was killed by a student, who was declared mentally unfit to stand trial.
In February 1989, an intruder sexually assaulted two female students, age 5 and 7.
Some parents on the school committee demanded tighter security including door locks and a security guard, which Baugniet initially resisted, according to meeting minutes obtained by The Gazette, but ultimately accepted after parents went to the media.
'I think it's the first incident of sexual abuse against a child in the school,' Baugniet told The Gazette in March 1989.
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School committee meetings attended by Baugniet in the mid-late 1980s featured pro- and anti-Baugniet camps and were often acrimonious.
The president of the FACE school committee from the early 1980s through 1988 was parent Andrée Goyer, a friend and staunch defender of Baugniet who impeded attempts by other parents and committee members to raise questions about the principal's behaviour, according to several sources.
Reached by The Gazette, Goyer — who now goes by her maiden name Delorme — said: 'I have no recollection of conversations with members of the school committee in the 1980s' about Baugniet abusing students.
Goyer acknowledged she had 'a form of friendship' with Baugniet, whom she 'admired for his pedagogical vision,' but said she was 'shocked to learn of the (recent) allegations.'
Baugniet's main antagonist on the school committee in the late 1980s was David Himmelstein, an American expat whose daughter attended FACE.
Reached by The Gazette, Himmelstein recalled being outraged that Baugniet continued to run the school with impunity while parents shared accounts of how the principal had sexually abused their children.
On June 26, 1989, Himmelstein received a legal letter from Le Corre, the school board lawyer. It asserted that Himmelstein had been disrupting school committee meetings and was 'instrumental in the circulation of rumours of a detrimental nature for members of the staff' as he 'affirmed being in possession of information that 'would rip FACE to pieces.''
The letter, which The Gazette has viewed, ordered Himmelstein to file reports with the school board and/or youth protection within five days if his complaints were serious, failing which the PSBGM would take 'all appropriate legal actions' against him.
Himmelstein hired his own lawyer, Michael Goldbloom of Martineau Walker, who sent a reply to the PSBGM —which The Gazette has also seen — proclaiming his client's freedom of speech and 'ability to participate fully as a responsible and active parent of a child enrolled at the FACE school.'
The matter went no further.
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In 1988, the FACE school committee voted to replace Goyer as president. Her successor, Rosemary Byrne, told The Gazette she requested a meeting with PSBGM director general Mike George.
The meeting took place at the PSBGM head office at the corner of Fielding Ave. and Côte-St-Luc Rd., the mother recalled, and school board chairman Allan Butler was also present. Butler died in 2005.
Byrne says she asked George 'point blank' if there was 'any proof to these rumours about Mr. Baugniet, and if they had conducted some sort of inquiry.'
George assured her the school board had 'inquired into these complaints and there was nothing to them,' according to Byrne.
George added that the PSBGM had nonetheless 'advised Phil not to have children out in the country anymore,' she remembered.
Byrne took the opportunity to complain to George that Baugniet had been drinking before school committee meetings, 'and I didn't think this was acceptable,' she said, to which George replied he would speak to the principal.
Reached by The Gazette, George stated he had no recollection of the meeting, or of the sexual abuse allegations against Baugniet, or of a PSBGM investigation.
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The PSBGM investigation was conducted with utmost secrecy.
PSBGM regional director Dan De Silva and director of personnel Euan Crabb carried out the investigation in April and May of 1988, after the school board received a written request from Batshaw Youth and Family Centres, which provides youth protection services to Montreal's English community.
In a phone interview with The Gazette, Crabb declined to discuss details of their findings.
'It was a confidential arrangement at the time,' he said. 'It's a private thing that the assistant director and I dealt with, with the director general. It's in the past.'
Both investigators had previous connections to Baugniet. De Silva had taught alongside him at Mount Royal High School in the early 1960s. De Silva was involved in the investigation to a limited extent, according to Crabb, who said the file was passed on to him.
It was complicated by the fact that 'Phil Baugniet was a friend of mine,' Crabb said. 'It was difficult for me to go down as the board and try to do an investigation of what happened. … At other times it was easier because we knew each other so we could discuss freely.'
Crabb had worked as a principal before joining the PSBGM and would see Baugniet at meetings of heads of different schools.
'I wasn't much of a personal friend, but … we kept in touch,' he said.
In a subsequent interview, Crabb said: 'I considered him an administration friend, like I did many other principals I worked with over the years.'
Crabb noted his discussions with Baugniet were 'based on hearsay,' and he had 'no proof, no actual details of anything. I was just trying to keep him away from any further rumours that were going around.'
De Silva and Crabb did not issue a report following their investigation. According to documents obtained by The Gazette, they concluded that given the time — two to three years — that had elapsed, the allegations could not be verified.
They did, however, recommend that George send a letter to Baugniet ordering him to limit his contact with children to the school during the daytime. The letter also informed Baugniet he could no longer take part in events where children slept away from home.
Crabb recalls drafting the letter, which he says George may well have signed. It was sent to Baugniet on June 21, 1988, according to official documents. Crabb is certain he and George talked about the situation.
'If I had gone down to have a visit with Phil Baugniet, I would have discussed it with Mike George,' he said, 'because he was my boss.'
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The directive that Baugniet not participate in extra-curricular activities involving children was soon flouted.
According to the allegations in the class action lawsuit, 'C,' the lead plaintiff, was abused by the principal when he was 7 on a school trip to Baugniet's farm during the 1988-89 school year.
C alleges Baugniet entered the cabin where he and other students were sleeping and touched the boy's genitals, saying: 'This will keep you warm.' C states he saw Baugniet do the same to another student before leaving.
C left FACE in 1989 but was abused again at Baugniet's home in the winter of 1990-91 when Baugniet followed the boy into the bathroom and touched his genitals, the lawsuit states.
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More than three decades later, only faint traces remain of the extraordinary challenges Giroux and other parents faced to have their children's allegations taken seriously.
Little did the parents know when their lawyer, Doucet, filed a complaint with the Comité de la protection de la jeunesse (CPJ) that the resulting report would provide possibly the sole enduring record of the institutional response to the allegations made against Baugniet while he was at FACE.
Julia Northrup, a division head at Batshaw Youth and Family Services, monitored the events at FACE in the late 1980s. She urged the CPJ to intervene in the case, according to CPJ investigation files obtained by The Gazette through an access-to-information request.
Northrup told the CPJ investigator at the time that 'nothing was going to move' in the file despite the parents having contacted police, the school, the school committee and school board.
She found the situation 'unacceptable' and said the teachers alerted to the allegations were 'too close to the school administration to react.'
The security of FACE students could not be assured, Northrup insisted, as long as Baugniet remained principal.
Reached by The Gazette, Northrup, who is retired, said she could 'not talk about any cases real or imaginary I may or may not have been involved in.'
The CPJ report was issued in the summer of 1989. Among the questions the report sought to answer was why youth protection was not notified immediately after FACE teachers were told of the allegations by Mongrain and other children in 1986.
According to CPJ files, 'the teacher in charge of the camp,' identified therein as former FACE English teacher Jim Stiller, handled a complaint by two students.
Instead of following the law on youth protection and immediately notifying youth protection, the documents show, Stiller stuck to the PSBGM's policy concerning sexual abuse at the time, which stated: 'When there is reason to believe a child has been abused, the teacher must report the facts to the principal or administrator of the school, and it is the principal's duty to report the situation.'
Except that in this case, the principal was the alleged abuser.
'The teacher, Mr. Stiller, discussed the situation with his principal, Mr. Baugniet,' the CPJ report reads, 'and together they met with the children,' whereupon Baugniet denied the allegations.
The CPJ criticized this process harshly, saying such a confrontation between alleged abuser and alleged victims 'is an aberrant and irresponsible act that denotes a complete lack of sensitivity toward the child.' It recommended the PSBGM notify staff that such a situation should never be repeated.
The children's right to have their situation reported to youth protection was violated 'by the teacher, the principal and the school board,' the CPJ report concludes.
The report was distributed to Batshaw Youth and Family Centres, the president of the PSBGM, the director of the Montreal Catholic School Commission, the provincial associations of both school boards and Quebec Education Minister Claude Ryan.
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Stiller was part of Baugniet's inner circle of friends, according to several former FACE teachers.
'I admired him,' Stiller said of the principal, without whom he noted 'there would never have been a FACE — and look at the benefit over the years to so many kids.'
In an interview with The Gazette, Stiller denied putting children and Baugniet in the same room to sort out sexual abuse allegations.
He did recall being told by two boys that the principal had acted inappropriately during a school trip to his farm. According to Stiller, the boys said they had been invited to sleep 'in a different spot that was warmer, because (Baugniet) had come to ask if anyone was cold.'
Stiller said he later discussed the incident with the children's parents and with Baugniet, and he came away believing that it was 'an act of kindness that was misunderstood.'
Stiller recalled that he and English teacher Shirley Perlman were interviewed by 'two men from the PSBGM' about the allegations.
In a subsequent interview with The Gazette, Stiller cast doubt on many of his previous assertions and said he had no clear memory of any allegations involving Baugniet. He also denied being the director of the camps.
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The PSBGM's De Silva and Crabb made one other recommendation following their investigation: that the school board revise its policy on how to handle abuse allegations to adhere to the law on youth protection.
After many delays, the PSBGM's Policy and Procedures Regarding Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect was changed in 1994. The new policy instructed employees to report abuse allegations directly to youth protection, and not to the school principal or administrator as previously indicated.
The Commission de protection des droits de la jeunesse oversaw the revision, corresponding extensively with the PSBGM and the Ministry of Education to move the process forward. The correspondence included letters to and from Claude Ryan and PSBGM director general Mike George.
In a letter to the commission dated June 15, 1990, Ryan acknowledged that the sexual abuse allegations at FACE and one other school had been 'known to the authorities of the Ministry of Education for some time.'
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The PSBGM finally removed Baugniet from FACE in 1991, but his career as a principal was not over. Following the closure of Outremont High School one year later, the school board named him principal of the newly reopened École secondaire Outremont.
Baugniet remained at Outremont until at least 1998. In the early 2000s, he worked as a consultant for educational institutions including the English Montreal School Board.
Baugniet's wife died in 2012. This reporter interviewed him in November 2020 about Kamala Harris's time at FACE in the 1970s.
'I like to think she's just one of many FACE grads or ex-FACE students who have distinguished themselves in many ways,' he said.
He sold his farm just weeks later and moved to Victoria, B.C.
After the class action lawsuit was launched in early 2023, Baugniet's Facebook profile was removed.
Several former students tracked down by The Gazette, and whose stories are shared here, later reached out to police and became complainants in the criminal proceedings.
Filed according to the Criminal Code at the time of the alleged events, the 17 criminal charges against Baugniet in Ontario included multiple counts of sexual assault and indecent assault on a male; intimidation — use of threats or violence; sexual assault on a person under 16 years of age; sexual assault of a person under the age of 14; and sexual interference. At one point, the case comprised 20 charges involving nine children, but some charges were dropped following the death of one of the alleged victims. The case was closed following Baugniet's death in April.
'We're disappointed the victims didn't get the opportunity to have the trial come to its conclusion,' said Cornwall Crown prosecutor Elaine Evans. 'We commend them for their bravery and dignity throughout the process.'
In Quebec, Baugniet faced two criminal charges: indecent assault on a male person and gross indecency.
'It's not a withdrawal of the charges,' Quebec Crown prosecutor Jérôme Laflamme explained, on May 20, after that case too was ended. 'The file is simply closed.'
Baugniet's alleged victims have one remaining avenue for justice in the class action lawsuit, through which the school board and possibly Baugniet's estate could yet be found liable.
'The criminal proceedings had a different goal: to punish a person who has committed criminal acts,' said lawyer Pierre Boivin of Kugler Kandestin, which is representing claimants in the class action. 'The civil proceeding is for people to be indemnified for damages caused by a person.'
Irwin Liebman, the lawyer representing Baugniet in the class action, said his client always 'denied the allegations' and 'this entire matter' during their discussions.
'From Day One, there was no question in his mind,' Liebman said. 'He was adamant in his denials.'
The lawsuit is expected to return to court in the fall.
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Antoine Mongrain had mixed feelings when informed of Baugniet's death in a recent conversation.
'C'est bittersweet; it's like, the easy way out,' he said, sitting in his Montreal apartment, where he was first interviewed by The Gazette two years ago.
At that time, he had shared how his childhood encounter with Baugniet changed the adult he would become. One memory haunts him, he said.
Mongrain was playing street hockey one afternoon in 1986 when his father called him into the apartment. Police investigators were there and had questions for him.
Mongrain recalls telling police everything he remembered about what happened with Baugniet at Camp Kanawana; but they kept pushing for more, so he exaggerated.
'At some point, a person feels they have to give the police what they want. I said he had touched my genitals, but it wasn't true.'
The statement would become a source of shame. Already, in the weeks following the camp trip, a rumour began to circulate among teachers that Mongrain had made the whole thing up. In the schoolyard, students called him a liar.
When the case didn't move forward after the police investigation, Mongrain felt responsible.
'That's my trauma,' he said. 'It's not Mr. Baugniet — it's about not being believed.'
Mongrain left FACE at the end of Grade 6 the following year. He went on to become a child star in Quebec, appearing on the popular kids' TV show Le Club des 100 watts. He continued acting in adulthood; but despite his success, a sense of self-doubt loomed.
He discovered his mother's file after her death in 2020 but didn't open it until he was contacted by The Gazette in May 2023. After going through her notes and the CPJ report, Mongrain realized the case was far bigger than him.
'It's strange I was discredited,' he said, holding up the report. 'How could I be a liar? Here's the proof.
'I'm making peace with this. It's something that was far back, that I hadn't revisited. It's like a healing.'
His voice faltered.
'I wish that for everyone,' he said. 'I had a false impression of myself. Now it's bringing up emotions I need to exorcise. It's a good thing.'
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Former students seeking more information about the class action lawsuit can contact Kugler Kandestin law firm at kklex.com/class-actions.
A free and confidential hotline for victims of sexual violence who plan to file a complaint with the police is available at 1-877-547-3727. A tip line exists for those wishing to report sexual misconduct in Quebec schools: 1-833-DENONCE (336-6623).
T'Cha Dunlevy
montrealgazette
T'Cha Dunlevy has been The Gazette's pop music critic and film critic. He currently reports on a wide range of issues, from culture to human interest and social justice.

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The Gazette investigation reveals that many figures of authority knew about the allegations made against Baugniet while he was at FACE, including parents, teachers, youth protection officials, police and those at the highest levels of the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal (PSBGM). Yet he remained principal until 1991. Several alleged victims and witnesses recount strikingly similar details about their former principal's actions during supervised school trips as well as visits to Baugniet's hobby farm in Ontario by invitation. Many say they were abused by Baugniet in their bed, at or after lights out. The Gazette also uncovered alarming information, which has never been previously reported, regarding a shocking tragedy that was given only cursory media attention at the time: the death of a 13-year-old Victoria School student during a visit to Baugniet's farm in 1973. 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The situations they describe follow a distressing pattern and have never been reported before. — Baugniet came back to the cabin a second night, according to Carl. 'By then we know the sound of the clicking when he opens the door,' he said. 'He would talk to us in a soft voice, say 'How was your day?' Stuff like that. It seemed like just a nice thing, until he goes down there.' Carl says Baugniet initially rubbed his stomach, then moved his hand lower, to the boy's genitals. 'It was the first time I was ever touched, so it stayed with me.' Carl says he blocked out all memory of the experience after returning home, but his personality changed. 'I was off,' he recalled. 'You don't really know what happened. You just feel super depressed, like death.' When he was 19, his mother sent him to a therapist and the memories came flooding back. 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The principal didn't turn on the light, which Edward says gave him a bad feeling. Baugniet sat on his friend Jonathan*'s bed, he recalled. Edward lay there for a moment in silence, then whispered to Jonathan in Spanish. 'I said, 'Hey Jonathan, are you awake?'' Edward recounted. 'Jonathan said, 'Yes.'' 'I said, 'Is Baugniet next to you?' 'He said, 'Yes.' 'I said, 'Is he on your bed?' 'He said, 'Yes.' 'I said, 'Is he touching you?' 'He said, 'Yes.'' Looking back now, Edward says he wishes he had jumped up, turned on the light and tried to help his friend. 'At that moment, we were in panic mode,' he explained. 'Nobody moved.' The Gazette spoke with Jonathan, who acknowledged an interaction with Baugniet at the camp, then ended the call and stopped responding to The Gazette's subsequent attempts to contact him. Ben* was not in the same cabin as his friends but recalls being told about what happened. — Luna* remembers wearing her light-blue jogging suit when she got up from the campfire and began walking back to her cabin. Out of the darkness, she says, Baugniet appeared next to her. He asked how she was doing and other questions she found strange given 'the man didn't often talk with us.' As they proceeded along the path, she felt her principal's hand graze her buttocks: 'He thought I didn't notice.' According to Luna, Baugniet twice touched her breasts over her clothes, including when they were face to face. Luna was 11, but 'I looked older,' she noted. 'I was quite developed.' Years later, at a mini reunion of FACE students in 2019, Luna recalls a former classmate telling her about what happened to Jonathan, and she shared memories of her own encounter. — Sylvie* says there was alcohol on Baugniet's breath when the principal came into the girls' cabin where she was sleeping. 'He French-kissed me, with full spit,' she said. 'He felt my breasts, even though I had no breasts. He put his hands up my shirt. Then he left.' She remains shaken by the memory. 'He was disgusting, and he smelled.' Three of Sylvie's former classmates confirmed she told them about the incident, including Ève Dussault. Ève's mother, Louisette Dussault, who died in March 2023, starred on the hit children's television show Passe-Partout. 'I remember in our cabin, we were panicked,' Dussault recalled. 'We were afraid he would come in to say goodnight.' — Émile* remembers Baugniet entering his cabin while he and his friends were in their beds joking around after curfew. 'He said, 'Hey guys, calm down,'' Émile recounted. 'He sat on my bed and rubbed my tummy.' Émile pushed the principal's hand away. 'I said, 'Hey!'' Baugniet immediately got up and told everyone to go to sleep, then left, according to Émile. 'It was inappropriate,' he said, 'but I just remember saying to my friends he was such an idiot.' — Jumal Lord recalls Baugniet coming into his cabin at bedtime and tickling the boys. 'He starts with his 'Coochy coochy coo' to everybody,' Lord said. 'He comes to my bunk, and he tickles me on my chest ... then he tries to tickle my stomach.' Lord covered himself. 'I didn't want to be tickled,' he said. 'I knew it was wrong because nobody is supposed to touch anybody — that's what my dad taught me.' Baugniet touched his friend Frédéric* — and Frédéric objected, Lord recalled. Baugniet 'was thrown off' and left, according to Lord; but Frédéric remained upset, saying he was going to tell his parents. The Gazette contacted Frédéric, who answered an initial message then stopped responding after being asked about the incident. In his teens, Lord developed a drug habit — 'I don't know if it was because of that,' he said — and later went to rehab. He was hesitant to talk to women and to enter relationships. 'You question your own identity,' he said. 'Why would this guy touch me and my friends?' ———————————————————————————————————————— On a Friday afternoon one year later, in May 1986, parents stood outside FACE school waiting for their children to return from the annual Grade 5 trip to Camp Kanawana. Suzanne Giroux was among them on University St. as the school bus pulled up. Her 10-year-old son, Antoine Mongrain, stepped off the bus and ran to her crying, saying he had been 'very afraid' his principal was going to rape him, The Gazette has learned. A frenzy ensued as other children debriefed their parents. Giroux, who was a reporter at Radio-Canada, listened as a friend of her son's told her other students had complained about being abused by Baugniet the previous year. Giroux pieced together her son's story in the days and weeks that followed. She kept meticulous handwritten notes, which The Gazette obtained, that provide a valuable timeline of what happened during that trip. Giroux died in 2020 but her son, now 49, agreed to revisit the events in an interview. On the last evening at Camp Kanawana, Mongrain left a large gathering to fetch his flashlight. Kids were staying in a mix of cabins and tents. Mongrain remembers entering the military-style tent he shared with other boys and seeing Baugniet seated with his arm around a schoolmate, who looked uncomfortable. Mongrain says the principal put his free arm around him, asked his name and how long he had been at the school ('Since kindergarten,' Mongrain recalled telling him, though he had skipped a grade). As they talked, Mongrain recalled, Baugniet began rubbing his hand up and down Mongrain's back over his clothes, across his stomach and gradually lower, near his buttocks and groin. 'It's creepy — that you know at 10 years old,' Mongrain said. 'But where does a sexual assault begin?' Mongrain says he felt trapped. Then another boy, whom Mongrain described as a tough kid, entered the tent. When Baugniet tried the same thing on the newcomer, the boy removed the principal's hand, Mongrain recounted; the spell broken, he and the third boy managed to leave. Mongrain spoke to his English teacher, Shirley Perlman, who was a chaperone on the trip. According to Giroux's notes, Perlman told her in a phone call a few days later that she knew Mongrain 'could not have fabricated such a story.' Perlman told Giroux that Mongrain became so distraught while talking to her that he began hyperventilating and fainted; he woke up shortly after and started to cry, then vomited. ———————————————————————————————————————— At least six former students interviewed by The Gazette recalled a panic spreading through the camp that evening about a rumour 'Mr. Baugniet' had touched a boy inappropriately. Several named Mongrain as the boy in question. Three saw Mongrain and other kids crying. 'We were scared,' Amelia Fuentes said. 'That night, we all went to bed early.' Four people, in separate interviews, remembered barricading their cabin door, afraid Baugniet would come for them. According to Giroux's notes, Perlman let Mongrain and a few friends sleep in a common area under her supervision. Perlman died in 2015, but a fellow teacher — who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals — remembers a conversation with her. One Monday morning, the teacher arrived to find students in distress in the classroom, saying, 'Baugniet molested kids at camp.' The teacher later saw Perlman in the staff room and shared what the students had said. 'I remember it perfectly,' the teacher said: Perlman 'burst into tears, dropped her cup and left the room crying, saying Baugniet 'promised me he'd get help.'' Former FACE art teacher Marie-Josée Normandin was at Camp Kanawana as a chaperone in 1986. She recalls the panic — and how she felt frustrated at being left in the dark. 'We heard rumours, but nothing concrete,' Normandin said. 'That led us to believe there had been (sexual) touching, but we didn't have more details.' She remembers FACE English teacher and camp director Jim Stiller gathering the students in one building and teachers in another and speaking to them separately. 'He didn't explain what happened,' she said, 'just that we shouldn't talk and shouldn't ask questions. … It was unpleasant. … It felt like they took us for idiots.' In an interview with The Gazette, Stiller said he had no memory of any situation involving Baugniet at Kanawana, nor of a panic at the camp. Normandin recalls that when the school buses brought everyone back to the city that Friday, Lilly Urban, vice-principal for FACE's primary grades, who died in 2004, was standing on the sidewalk with the parents. Teachers were told to wait on the bus, Normandin said, while Urban was briefed. Normandin recalled Urban uttering Baugniet's name in despair: 'I heard her say, 'Oh, Phillip' – as if to say, 'How could you get yourself into this again?' That's the impression it gave, that it wasn't the first time; because otherwise it would have been a big surprise.' ———————————————————————————————————————— In the weeks following her son's return, Giroux began tracking down students from the previous year's trip to Camp Kanawana. Her notes include names and phone numbers of alleged victims, their parents and potential witnesses, and people she spoke to at various public institutions. The names of Carl, Edward, Jonathan, Ben and Émile all appear in her notes, as do the names of teachers Jim Stiller and Shirley Perlman. Giroux met with youth protection and was advised to contact police nearest to where the events occurred. In the week of June 24, 1986, she filed a complaint with the Sûreté du Québec in St-Jérôme. According to documents obtained by The Gazette, SQ investigators met with Baugniet, who denied the allegations, and interviewed Mongrain and other children before concluding it was likely a case of 'mass hysteria at the school.' Police sent their findings to the Crown prosecutor in St-Jérôme, who deemed there was insufficient evidence to press charges. Things stalled until September 1987, when Giroux discovered more allegations about Baugniet involving two boys from FACE's English side during a trip to his farm in the spring of 1986 — the same year her son went to Camp Kanawana. ———————————————————————————————————————— Adam*, now 49, says he was sexually abused by Baugniet on that Grade 4 trip to the principal's farm in 1986. He recalls, 'as clear as day,' a troubling interaction with Baugniet on the first night of a two-night stay. Adam and other children were sleeping in the hay loft of a barn on the property, when he says he was awoken by a flashlight in his face. 'It was Mr. Baugniet,' Adam told The Gazette. 'He said something along the lines of, 'You can't sleep,' and about taking me to the house.' Baugniet picked him up, Adam said. 'As he carried me, he placed his hand on the backside of my pants … under my pants, on my bare bottom,' he remembered. 'I pretty much froze.' According to Adam, Baugniet brought him to his bedroom and placed him on his bed, where the principal slept beside him. 'I just lay perfectly still all night,' he recalled. Adam says he was not touched by Baugniet on the second night; but when he woke up in the hay loft on the final morning, he noticed another boy was missing. Later that day, the two boys talked. 'We knew it wasn't right,' Adam said. Upon returning to Montreal, he remembered, the boys told a teacher. Their parents were notified. ———————————————————————————————————————— On Oct. 13, 1987, at 7:30 p.m., Giroux assembled a group of parents of alleged victims for a two-hour meeting with children's rights lawyer Joanne Doucet. Giroux's notes from the meeting mention contacting youth protection and include a strategy for the parents consisting of a 'police investigation' and going to the school board 'with precise facts.' Her notes show she had communicated with PSBGM commissioner Ivan Livingstone, and that others at the school board were aware of the situation: Livingstone had contacted Dan De Silva, regional director for the PSBGM in charge of FACE, about Baugniet; he also wrote to school board lawyer Claude Le Corre. De Silva died in 2019. Le Corre died in 2020. In an interview with The Gazette, Livingstone, 94, recalled discussing the allegations against Baugniet with other PSBGM commissioners, but he did not remember being directly involved in the file. Among the people at the meeting with Doucet, according to Giroux's notes, were Adam and his mother. Adam's mom filed a complaint with Montreal police on Nov. 10, 1987. Adam recalls investigators visiting his home frequently in the months that followed but says they 'kept hitting roadblocks.' Since the alleged events took place in Ontario, a new complaint would have to be filed with Cornwall police and the whole process begun anew. 'Our parents didn't want to put the added stress on us children of going to Ontario over and over,' he said, and so the matter was dropped. Documents obtained by The Gazette confirm the jurisdictional issue. Adam recalls the Montreal officers being 'very frustrated' and 'apologizing multiple times.' During this period, he says his mother sent him to monthly group therapy sessions at the Montreal Children's Hospital for victims of abuse, which he attended for three or four years. 'Looking back, it helped me cope,' Adam said, 'to not let this be a defining moment in my life.' ———————————————————————————————————————— The most significant development to emerge from the meeting Giroux organized between the parents and Doucet was the lawyer's decision to file a complaint with the Comité de la protection de la jeunesse (CPJ), an agency that was part of Quebec's Ministry of Justice and which was later folded into the Quebec Human Rights Commission. On July 25, 1988, in response to Doucet's complaint, the CPJ launched an investigation into how FACE staff and the PSBGM handled the allegations made against Baugniet by Mongrain and four other children. ———————————————————————————————————————— Unbeknownst to Giroux, her efforts echoed that of another FACE mother, who had clashed with Baugniet a decade earlier. Mary*'s son Peter* was among the first group of students to attend FACE (or FACES, as it was then called) when Baugniet co-founded the school in 1975. Mary had known Baugniet since the early 1960s, when they were teachers at a Montreal high school and would drive to work together. Peter was an intelligent child who loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian. In the spring of 1976, Baugniet invited the 12-year-old to his farm to see the animals. As the principal was a family friend, Mary and her husband Michael* thought nothing of it. But when Peter returned from the overnight visit, he asked his mother if they could speak. 'He said, 'I have something to tell you, but you mustn't tell daddy,'' Mary told The Gazette. According to Mary, who is now in her 80s, Peter said he had shared a bed with Baugniet and the principal had fondled his genitals. 'He didn't go into a lot of details, and I didn't want to push it,' she said, 'but (Baugniet) molested him.' Mary told her husband. Peter was kept home from school the following day, and Mary called Baugniet to demand they meet. At the meeting, Mary says she informed Baugniet that she and Michael were ready to go to police but their son had asked them not to. Should the boy change his mind, she recalled warning the principal, they would prosecute him 'to the full extent of the law.' Baugniet reacted strongly, according to Mary. 'He was like an old colonel, blustering, kind of a pompous twit, really. He tried to bully me, but I'm not bully-able. I said, 'That's it, you're on notice.'' Mary and Michael withdrew Peter from FACE. They took him to a therapist but their son was never the same, she said. In his teens, he developed an addiction problem and anger management issues. He went to university but dropped out. 'Peter has led a life — he's not exactly a vagrant, but he's not tethered down,' Mary noted. 'He never married; he had a lot of failed relationships. I put that all down to this situation. I blame Baugniet for that.' In the year following the alleged abuse, Mary says she told two people at the PSBGM — director general Marcel Fox and commissioner Micki Bregman — about what happened but nothing was done. 'I really felt they lacked guts; they lacked moral integrity,' she said. Fox died in 2015. In a phone interview with The Gazette, Bregman said she had no recollection of being told about the allegations. In the early 2000s, according to Mary, Baugniet showed up at her ex-husband Michael's funeral but was asked to leave. A friend of the family confirmed the story, as did Peter's sibling. The sibling remembers being warned by their parents 'not to be alone with Baugniet.' The Gazette spoke with a friend of Mary's, who remembered Mary telling her what happened at the farm. 'I knew Mary and the family well,' she said. 'This had a very big effect.' ———————————————————————————————————————— Baugniet bought his farmhouse in December 1972. Located on a sleepy stretch of dirt road in Lunenburg, Ont., surrounded by weeping willows, barns and fields, it had the makings of a haven of tranquility. It is here that Baugniet sexually abused multiple children over the next two decades, according to multiple sources. And it is here that a boy died. Baugniet had owned the property less than five months when 13-year-old Victoria School student Christian Ventela was killed in a horrific accident on the property. Christian fell from the bucket of a front-end loader his principal was driving on April 19, 1973. The tractor's rear wheel 'crushed the boy's head, killing him instantly,' according to an item in the Ottawa Citizen. Ontario Provincial Police investigated, news clippings indicate, but no charges were laid. Two other Victoria School students, Sheldon Melrose and David Wall, were also in the bucket but survived. The boys were visiting the farm at the principal's invitation. Reached by The Gazette, Wall, who is now 65, said he 'remembered perfectly' what happened. He was 13 and it was his first time at the farm. Baugniet had taken the boys to do some work outside and they were heading back in the late afternoon. 'We were driving down the dirt road in the scoop of the tractor,' Wall said. 'I was sitting on the left-hand side, Sheldon was sitting in the middle, and Chris was on the right-hand side.' Baugniet raised and lowered the scoop of the tractor once or twice as 'a game,' according to Wall, when the scoop suddenly opened. 'I remember thinking, 'Jump to the left,' and hitting the dirt road and rolling,' he said. 'The tractor went another 20 to 30 feet. I remember when it came to a stop, Sheldon jumping off and running back yelling, 'Chris!' 'That's when I noticed Chris was in the middle of the road and he was dead. ... The back of his head was open. There was no doubt. I remember Mr. Baugniet coming back and he put his coat over Chris's face and head.' Christian was an elite skier and a popular kid, his sister Sharon Ventela told The Gazette. Their parents, who owned Siren's ski shop in Montreal, were out of the country when he died. Ventela, who was 14 at the time, was home with her younger brother Karl when police knocked at the door and told their godmother the news. Christian's death 'destroyed my family,' Ventela said. 'My mother went and sat on the couch for two years. It was terrible.' Sharon and Karl Ventela are now estranged. Karl did not respond to phone messages left by The Gazette. Sharon Ventela recalled an inquiry into Christian's death, at which she says her parents, who were friends with Baugniet, 'testified on his behalf.' Wall also recalled the inquiry, which he and Melrose attended. The boys sat at the back of the room. 'I remember the judge saying — there was some reference to the tractor scoop being raised and lowered, and Mr. Baugniet denied that,' he said. 'I remember thinking, 'Well, no.' ... He raised and lowered the scoop. Both Sheldon and I later said, 'He raised the scoop.'' Wall remembered one other detail about that fateful afternoon. Following Christian's death, he recalled someone 'gave us a pill, which turned out to be a sleeping pill.' Melrose died in November 2022, but The Gazette spoke to his wife. Lisa* shared her late husband's story on the condition that her name not be used. Lisa says her husband told her Baugniet's first call following Christian's death was not to emergency services but to his brother Robert, a navy reserve officer who lived in Westmount and worked in public relations, and that Robert drove to the farm immediately. Melrose and Wall were sedated following the brother's arrival, according to Lisa. 'Phillip said, 'Please take this — it's something to make you go to sleep so you can forget what just happened.'' After the boys took the sedative, she recounted, 'Phillip said, 'Now we have to call the cops.'' The two boys were unconscious when police arrived and were never questioned, according to Lisa. Robert Baugniet died in January 2023. It was not Melrose's first time at the farm, according to his wife. Baugniet had befriended his mother Thelma, who was a widow on welfare, Lisa said; the principal would bring Thelma cigarettes and food and take Melrose to his farm on weekends. Melrose was sexually abused by Baugniet for more than a year while he was a student at Victoria School, according to Lisa. 'All the molestation happened at the farm,' she said. In 2019, after having lost touch for decades, Melrose and Sharon Ventela reconnected, and he told her about the sexual abuse. '(Baugniet) definitely abused Sheldon over a period of time at the farm,' Ventela said. 'This was out of Sheldon's mouth.' Lisa said her husband talked openly in his later years about the abuse, and he warned other parents to keep an eye on adults around their children. Melrose spoke to a Montreal police investigator in the weeks before he died, Lisa recalled: 'Sheldon was prepared to press charges.' ———————————————————————————————————————— After Christian's death, Baugniet returned to work at Victoria School, where he remained a popular figure. The Gazette spoke with several former students whose recollections of their principal were emphatically positive. Steve Kanavos says he was good friends with Christian and another boy Will* — and that Baugniet would bring the three of them to eat at A&W. 'He used to have a convertible,' Kanavos said. Kanavos was unaware of the sexual abuse allegations against Baugniet until The Gazette contacted him. He recalls being invited to the farm the weekend Christian died. 'The only reason I didn't go is my parents wouldn't let me,' he said. Kanavos attended Christian's funeral. 'He was cremated,' he recalled. Baugniet took a month off following the death, he noted. Kanavos played saxophone in the school orchestra and remembers Baugniet helping get him into Westmount High School. 'He was one of the best people somebody could encounter in education,' said Kanavos, who had been Facebook friends with Baugniet. 'He was perfect.' Contacted by The Gazette, Will responded via text message: 'As the case is in the courts, I won't comment until a judgment is rendered.' Two women, Robin Grier and Debbie MacDonald, wondered why only boys were invited to the farm. 'I always felt left out,' said Grier, who played clarinet and 'seriously f---ing adored' Baugniet. 'He was an incredibly intense and passionate man. He would direct the orchestra in a three-piece, pinstriped suit. He would come to people's houses to chat when he was concerned about students. I remember him sitting at the kitchen table with my parents over a drink. He was very persuasive.' Grier's opinion of her former principal changed after she learned of the allegations. 'It's been difficult and emotional for me to realize there was this disconnect, and there were two completely different sides to this person,' she said. MacDonald too was Facebook friends with Baugniet. Her former principal was 'one of the first decent male role models in my life,' who encouraged her interest in writing, she said. She recalls the shock at school over Christian's death and says Baugniet took 'three or four weeks off' afterward. 'Everyone felt bad for (Christian's younger brother) Karl,' who was in her class, MacDonald said. 'Mostly we were trying not to talk about it so as not to cause Karl any discomfort.' Despite the reverence the principal inspired, rumours circulated. Michele Hoffman recalls being told by her mother to stay away from Baugniet, and that 'he was touching the boys.' ———————————————————————————————————————— Baugniet continued inviting boys to his farm after Christian died. Another Victoria School student, Mark, says he was invited there 'within six months' of Christian's death, often with other boys, and was 'abused on numerous occasions' by his principal. Mark reached out to The Gazette after reading about Baugniet in the newspaper. The Gazette decided to include the 63-year-old's account because it contains details echoed by others that have never been reported before. Mark agreed to be identified by his first name but asked that his last name be withheld because he doesn't want his family to discover the abuse he says he suffered. He has never told anyone about these events, he explained. Mark was a tall and athletic 12-year-old who liked skiing, he says, so Baugniet put him in charge of equipment for school ski trips. At the farm, he recalls, Baugniet let him drive the tractor and use his chainsaw, which thrilled the boy. Looking back, Mark believes he was being groomed. Nothing happened on the first couple visits to the farm; but on the third trip, according to Mark, the principal entered the room where he was sleeping and said, 'Time for a massage.' Baugniet masturbated while massaging him, according to Mark. It happened three times over the week-long visit — and on several occasions over a two-year period, Mark said. The principal called it 'the Baugniet massage,' he noted. 'After two years, I thought, 'This is wrong,'' he said. 'I knew what he was doing. I would wake up in the morning and there would be droplets of his semen on the floor.' Baugniet's parents were often at the farm, according to Mark, as was Baugniet's brother, Robert. Mark says he noticed tension between Baugniet and his brother and wondered if his family suspected what was happening. At one point, Mark's mother expressed concern about her son's frequent trips to the farm. 'She asked, 'Is this all okay, Mark?' I said, 'Yeah, it's absolutely fine.'' When he was around 13, Mark's family moved to Nova Scotia, after which he says Baugniet called and offered to fly him in to visit the farm. Once there, his former principal 'tried again' to touch him, according to Mark. 'I said, 'No, that's enough. You're not doing this again. I'd like to go home now.'' Baugniet asked what was the matter, Mark recalled. 'I said, 'You know what's the matter. You lured me down here with tractors and chainsaws.' 'I said, 'Something's wrong with you.' 'He said, 'No there isn't.' 'I said, 'Yeah, there is.' I left the next day.' All these years later, Mark says, 'there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about it.' ———————————————————————————————————————— Filed in Quebec Superior Court on Sept. 24, 2024, the originating application of the class action lawsuit contains the statements of three other former Victoria School students, all now in their early 60s, who say they were sexually abused at Baugniet's farm and elsewhere in the 16 months following Christian's death. In the spring of 1974, Baugniet is alleged to have sexually abused a Grade 6 Victoria School student, referred to as Member #2 in the class action suit, on four occasions at his farm. Baugniet is also alleged to have sodomized Member #2's 13-year-old brother, Member #3, several times that summer at the farm, often while drunk, following which he is said to have threatened to kill the boy if he told anyone. In addition to being principal, Baugniet was conductor of the Victoria School orchestra during the 1973-74 school year. On a trip outside the city, he is alleged to have entered the dormitory where the children were sleeping and fondled the genitals of Member #4, who was 10 at the time. According to Member #4's statement, Baugniet sexually abused him again on a trip to his farm, including on the car ride there, in Baugniet's bed and during a tractor ride. ———————————————————————————————————————— Baugniet was born in 1942 and grew up in London, England, where he attended Dulwich College, an elite boys' school. He moved to Montreal with his family around 1957 and taught at Mount Royal High School in the early 1960s. According to an item published in The Gazette, Baugniet was supervising children in the Laurentians in 1966, as director of the new Camp Bella Coola for boys. The earliest allegations of sexual abuse date back to Baugniet's time as a teacher at Lachine High School, where he stage-directed musical and theatre productions as part of the MAD (music, art, drama) program he inaugurated with two fellow teachers who later joined him at FACE. The class action lawsuit includes the account of Member #5. The man, now in his 60s, says that Baugniet abused him at Lachine High School during the 1970-71 school year, when he was 12. Baugniet, who was the boy's drama teacher, invited him to meet in a dressing room one evening after class, Member #5 states. Baugniet is alleged to have removed the boy's clothing and given him a full-body massage. In subsequent encounters, according to Member #5, Baugniet penetrated the boy's anus with his finger and attempted to sodomize him. The court document alleges Baugniet told the boy they had to continue meeting or the boy would never become a good actor. Scarred by the incidents, the document says, the boy withdrew from drama class and lost interest in school. ———————————————————————————————————————— In 1975, Baugniet co-founded FACES. The acronym stood for Fine Arts Core Elementary School. Located in the former Victoria School building on de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., FACES initially welcomed students from kindergarten to Grade 7. The school expanded to Grade 11 over the next half-decade as the student population increased from 650 to 1,000. The name was shortened to FACE, for Fine Arts Core Education. Classes migrated to the old High School of Montreal building on University St. in the late 1970s. In 1977, Baugniet married a widow with two daughters attending FACE. The couple had two more children, who later went to the school. FACE alumni include music artists Rufus Wainwright, Melissa Auf der Maur and Mitsou, actors Jay Baruchel and Mariloup Wolfe, author Fanny Britt and former U.S. vice-president Kamala Harris. (This reporter also attended FACE from 1982 to 1988.) The principal was a cultish figure at FACE, revered for the arts-based curriculum and vibrant community he helped create. The Gazette spoke with more than two dozen former FACE teachers and administrators, approximately half of whom, though concerned by the allegations in the class action lawsuit, described Baugniet with terms including 'mentor,' 'friend,' 'great pedagogue' and 'a genius to have created that school.' Half said they knew nothing about the allegations at the time. Others said they heard rumours, a few using words like 'quashed' and 'omertà' to describe the code of silence that reigned. At least five teachers referred to Baugniet having an inner circle of friends at the school consisting primarily of teachers on FACE's English side who called him 'Phil.' A dozen former teachers and administrators said Baugniet liked to drink; five (including two former administrators) described him as an alcoholic. According to sources, he was known to keep bottles of alcohol in his office, where he would invite a group of mostly male teachers for drinks on Friday afternoons. A series of troubling events took place at FACE in the 1980s. A librarian was sexually assaulted by an intruder in 1983. A flasher entered the building mid-decade; Baugniet chased the man down the street with a baseball bat, according to a female student who witnessed the incident and recalls thinking of her principal as 'a hero.' In September 1987, a teacher in the adjoining adult education program was killed by a student, who was declared mentally unfit to stand trial. In February 1989, an intruder sexually assaulted two female students, age 5 and 7. Some parents on the school committee demanded tighter security including door locks and a security guard, which Baugniet initially resisted, according to meeting minutes obtained by The Gazette, but ultimately accepted after parents went to the media. 'I think it's the first incident of sexual abuse against a child in the school,' Baugniet told The Gazette in March 1989. ———————————————————————————————————————— School committee meetings attended by Baugniet in the mid-late 1980s featured pro- and anti-Baugniet camps and were often acrimonious. The president of the FACE school committee from the early 1980s through 1988 was parent Andrée Goyer, a friend and staunch defender of Baugniet who impeded attempts by other parents and committee members to raise questions about the principal's behaviour, according to several sources. Reached by The Gazette, Goyer — who now goes by her maiden name Delorme — said: 'I have no recollection of conversations with members of the school committee in the 1980s' about Baugniet abusing students. Goyer acknowledged she had 'a form of friendship' with Baugniet, whom she 'admired for his pedagogical vision,' but said she was 'shocked to learn of the (recent) allegations.' Baugniet's main antagonist on the school committee in the late 1980s was David Himmelstein, an American expat whose daughter attended FACE. Reached by The Gazette, Himmelstein recalled being outraged that Baugniet continued to run the school with impunity while parents shared accounts of how the principal had sexually abused their children. On June 26, 1989, Himmelstein received a legal letter from Le Corre, the school board lawyer. It asserted that Himmelstein had been disrupting school committee meetings and was 'instrumental in the circulation of rumours of a detrimental nature for members of the staff' as he 'affirmed being in possession of information that 'would rip FACE to pieces.'' The letter, which The Gazette has viewed, ordered Himmelstein to file reports with the school board and/or youth protection within five days if his complaints were serious, failing which the PSBGM would take 'all appropriate legal actions' against him. Himmelstein hired his own lawyer, Michael Goldbloom of Martineau Walker, who sent a reply to the PSBGM —which The Gazette has also seen — proclaiming his client's freedom of speech and 'ability to participate fully as a responsible and active parent of a child enrolled at the FACE school.' The matter went no further. ———————————————————————————————————————— In 1988, the FACE school committee voted to replace Goyer as president. Her successor, Rosemary Byrne, told The Gazette she requested a meeting with PSBGM director general Mike George. The meeting took place at the PSBGM head office at the corner of Fielding Ave. and Côte-St-Luc Rd., the mother recalled, and school board chairman Allan Butler was also present. Butler died in 2005. Byrne says she asked George 'point blank' if there was 'any proof to these rumours about Mr. Baugniet, and if they had conducted some sort of inquiry.' George assured her the school board had 'inquired into these complaints and there was nothing to them,' according to Byrne. George added that the PSBGM had nonetheless 'advised Phil not to have children out in the country anymore,' she remembered. Byrne took the opportunity to complain to George that Baugniet had been drinking before school committee meetings, 'and I didn't think this was acceptable,' she said, to which George replied he would speak to the principal. Reached by The Gazette, George stated he had no recollection of the meeting, or of the sexual abuse allegations against Baugniet, or of a PSBGM investigation. ———————————————————————————————————————— The PSBGM investigation was conducted with utmost secrecy. PSBGM regional director Dan De Silva and director of personnel Euan Crabb carried out the investigation in April and May of 1988, after the school board received a written request from Batshaw Youth and Family Centres, which provides youth protection services to Montreal's English community. In a phone interview with The Gazette, Crabb declined to discuss details of their findings. 'It was a confidential arrangement at the time,' he said. 'It's a private thing that the assistant director and I dealt with, with the director general. It's in the past.' Both investigators had previous connections to Baugniet. De Silva had taught alongside him at Mount Royal High School in the early 1960s. De Silva was involved in the investigation to a limited extent, according to Crabb, who said the file was passed on to him. It was complicated by the fact that 'Phil Baugniet was a friend of mine,' Crabb said. 'It was difficult for me to go down as the board and try to do an investigation of what happened. … At other times it was easier because we knew each other so we could discuss freely.' Crabb had worked as a principal before joining the PSBGM and would see Baugniet at meetings of heads of different schools. 'I wasn't much of a personal friend, but … we kept in touch,' he said. In a subsequent interview, Crabb said: 'I considered him an administration friend, like I did many other principals I worked with over the years.' Crabb noted his discussions with Baugniet were 'based on hearsay,' and he had 'no proof, no actual details of anything. I was just trying to keep him away from any further rumours that were going around.' De Silva and Crabb did not issue a report following their investigation. According to documents obtained by The Gazette, they concluded that given the time — two to three years — that had elapsed, the allegations could not be verified. They did, however, recommend that George send a letter to Baugniet ordering him to limit his contact with children to the school during the daytime. The letter also informed Baugniet he could no longer take part in events where children slept away from home. Crabb recalls drafting the letter, which he says George may well have signed. It was sent to Baugniet on June 21, 1988, according to official documents. Crabb is certain he and George talked about the situation. 'If I had gone down to have a visit with Phil Baugniet, I would have discussed it with Mike George,' he said, 'because he was my boss.' ———————————————————————————————————————— The directive that Baugniet not participate in extra-curricular activities involving children was soon flouted. According to the allegations in the class action lawsuit, 'C,' the lead plaintiff, was abused by the principal when he was 7 on a school trip to Baugniet's farm during the 1988-89 school year. C alleges Baugniet entered the cabin where he and other students were sleeping and touched the boy's genitals, saying: 'This will keep you warm.' C states he saw Baugniet do the same to another student before leaving. C left FACE in 1989 but was abused again at Baugniet's home in the winter of 1990-91 when Baugniet followed the boy into the bathroom and touched his genitals, the lawsuit states. ———————————————————————————————————————— More than three decades later, only faint traces remain of the extraordinary challenges Giroux and other parents faced to have their children's allegations taken seriously. Little did the parents know when their lawyer, Doucet, filed a complaint with the Comité de la protection de la jeunesse (CPJ) that the resulting report would provide possibly the sole enduring record of the institutional response to the allegations made against Baugniet while he was at FACE. Julia Northrup, a division head at Batshaw Youth and Family Services, monitored the events at FACE in the late 1980s. She urged the CPJ to intervene in the case, according to CPJ investigation files obtained by The Gazette through an access-to-information request. Northrup told the CPJ investigator at the time that 'nothing was going to move' in the file despite the parents having contacted police, the school, the school committee and school board. She found the situation 'unacceptable' and said the teachers alerted to the allegations were 'too close to the school administration to react.' The security of FACE students could not be assured, Northrup insisted, as long as Baugniet remained principal. Reached by The Gazette, Northrup, who is retired, said she could 'not talk about any cases real or imaginary I may or may not have been involved in.' The CPJ report was issued in the summer of 1989. Among the questions the report sought to answer was why youth protection was not notified immediately after FACE teachers were told of the allegations by Mongrain and other children in 1986. According to CPJ files, 'the teacher in charge of the camp,' identified therein as former FACE English teacher Jim Stiller, handled a complaint by two students. Instead of following the law on youth protection and immediately notifying youth protection, the documents show, Stiller stuck to the PSBGM's policy concerning sexual abuse at the time, which stated: 'When there is reason to believe a child has been abused, the teacher must report the facts to the principal or administrator of the school, and it is the principal's duty to report the situation.' Except that in this case, the principal was the alleged abuser. 'The teacher, Mr. Stiller, discussed the situation with his principal, Mr. Baugniet,' the CPJ report reads, 'and together they met with the children,' whereupon Baugniet denied the allegations. The CPJ criticized this process harshly, saying such a confrontation between alleged abuser and alleged victims 'is an aberrant and irresponsible act that denotes a complete lack of sensitivity toward the child.' It recommended the PSBGM notify staff that such a situation should never be repeated. The children's right to have their situation reported to youth protection was violated 'by the teacher, the principal and the school board,' the CPJ report concludes. The report was distributed to Batshaw Youth and Family Centres, the president of the PSBGM, the director of the Montreal Catholic School Commission, the provincial associations of both school boards and Quebec Education Minister Claude Ryan. ———————————————————————————————————————— Stiller was part of Baugniet's inner circle of friends, according to several former FACE teachers. 'I admired him,' Stiller said of the principal, without whom he noted 'there would never have been a FACE — and look at the benefit over the years to so many kids.' In an interview with The Gazette, Stiller denied putting children and Baugniet in the same room to sort out sexual abuse allegations. He did recall being told by two boys that the principal had acted inappropriately during a school trip to his farm. According to Stiller, the boys said they had been invited to sleep 'in a different spot that was warmer, because (Baugniet) had come to ask if anyone was cold.' Stiller said he later discussed the incident with the children's parents and with Baugniet, and he came away believing that it was 'an act of kindness that was misunderstood.' Stiller recalled that he and English teacher Shirley Perlman were interviewed by 'two men from the PSBGM' about the allegations. In a subsequent interview with The Gazette, Stiller cast doubt on many of his previous assertions and said he had no clear memory of any allegations involving Baugniet. He also denied being the director of the camps. ———————————————————————————————————————— The PSBGM's De Silva and Crabb made one other recommendation following their investigation: that the school board revise its policy on how to handle abuse allegations to adhere to the law on youth protection. After many delays, the PSBGM's Policy and Procedures Regarding Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect was changed in 1994. The new policy instructed employees to report abuse allegations directly to youth protection, and not to the school principal or administrator as previously indicated. The Commission de protection des droits de la jeunesse oversaw the revision, corresponding extensively with the PSBGM and the Ministry of Education to move the process forward. The correspondence included letters to and from Claude Ryan and PSBGM director general Mike George. In a letter to the commission dated June 15, 1990, Ryan acknowledged that the sexual abuse allegations at FACE and one other school had been 'known to the authorities of the Ministry of Education for some time.' ———————————————————————————————————————— The PSBGM finally removed Baugniet from FACE in 1991, but his career as a principal was not over. Following the closure of Outremont High School one year later, the school board named him principal of the newly reopened École secondaire Outremont. Baugniet remained at Outremont until at least 1998. In the early 2000s, he worked as a consultant for educational institutions including the English Montreal School Board. Baugniet's wife died in 2012. This reporter interviewed him in November 2020 about Kamala Harris's time at FACE in the 1970s. 'I like to think she's just one of many FACE grads or ex-FACE students who have distinguished themselves in many ways,' he said. He sold his farm just weeks later and moved to Victoria, B.C. After the class action lawsuit was launched in early 2023, Baugniet's Facebook profile was removed. Several former students tracked down by The Gazette, and whose stories are shared here, later reached out to police and became complainants in the criminal proceedings. Filed according to the Criminal Code at the time of the alleged events, the 17 criminal charges against Baugniet in Ontario included multiple counts of sexual assault and indecent assault on a male; intimidation — use of threats or violence; sexual assault on a person under 16 years of age; sexual assault of a person under the age of 14; and sexual interference. At one point, the case comprised 20 charges involving nine children, but some charges were dropped following the death of one of the alleged victims. The case was closed following Baugniet's death in April. 'We're disappointed the victims didn't get the opportunity to have the trial come to its conclusion,' said Cornwall Crown prosecutor Elaine Evans. 'We commend them for their bravery and dignity throughout the process.' In Quebec, Baugniet faced two criminal charges: indecent assault on a male person and gross indecency. 'It's not a withdrawal of the charges,' Quebec Crown prosecutor Jérôme Laflamme explained, on May 20, after that case too was ended. 'The file is simply closed.' Baugniet's alleged victims have one remaining avenue for justice in the class action lawsuit, through which the school board and possibly Baugniet's estate could yet be found liable. 'The criminal proceedings had a different goal: to punish a person who has committed criminal acts,' said lawyer Pierre Boivin of Kugler Kandestin, which is representing claimants in the class action. 'The civil proceeding is for people to be indemnified for damages caused by a person.' Irwin Liebman, the lawyer representing Baugniet in the class action, said his client always 'denied the allegations' and 'this entire matter' during their discussions. 'From Day One, there was no question in his mind,' Liebman said. 'He was adamant in his denials.' The lawsuit is expected to return to court in the fall. ———————————————————————————————————————— Antoine Mongrain had mixed feelings when informed of Baugniet's death in a recent conversation. 'C'est bittersweet; it's like, the easy way out,' he said, sitting in his Montreal apartment, where he was first interviewed by The Gazette two years ago. At that time, he had shared how his childhood encounter with Baugniet changed the adult he would become. One memory haunts him, he said. Mongrain was playing street hockey one afternoon in 1986 when his father called him into the apartment. Police investigators were there and had questions for him. Mongrain recalls telling police everything he remembered about what happened with Baugniet at Camp Kanawana; but they kept pushing for more, so he exaggerated. 'At some point, a person feels they have to give the police what they want. I said he had touched my genitals, but it wasn't true.' The statement would become a source of shame. Already, in the weeks following the camp trip, a rumour began to circulate among teachers that Mongrain had made the whole thing up. In the schoolyard, students called him a liar. When the case didn't move forward after the police investigation, Mongrain felt responsible. 'That's my trauma,' he said. 'It's not Mr. Baugniet — it's about not being believed.' Mongrain left FACE at the end of Grade 6 the following year. He went on to become a child star in Quebec, appearing on the popular kids' TV show Le Club des 100 watts. He continued acting in adulthood; but despite his success, a sense of self-doubt loomed. He discovered his mother's file after her death in 2020 but didn't open it until he was contacted by The Gazette in May 2023. After going through her notes and the CPJ report, Mongrain realized the case was far bigger than him. 'It's strange I was discredited,' he said, holding up the report. 'How could I be a liar? Here's the proof. 'I'm making peace with this. It's something that was far back, that I hadn't revisited. It's like a healing.' His voice faltered. 'I wish that for everyone,' he said. 'I had a false impression of myself. Now it's bringing up emotions I need to exorcise. It's a good thing.' ———————————————————————————————————————— Former students seeking more information about the class action lawsuit can contact Kugler Kandestin law firm at A free and confidential hotline for victims of sexual violence who plan to file a complaint with the police is available at 1-877-547-3727. A tip line exists for those wishing to report sexual misconduct in Quebec schools: 1-833-DENONCE (336-6623). T'Cha Dunlevy montrealgazette T'Cha Dunlevy has been The Gazette's pop music critic and film critic. He currently reports on a wide range of issues, from culture to human interest and social justice.

Winnipeg Free Press

9 hours ago

• Winnipeg Free Press

Armed men in western Niger kill 34 soldiers and wound 14, authorities say

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Armed men killed 34 soldiers and wounded 14 others in western Niger near the tri-state border with Mali and Burkina Faso, the defense ministry said. The attack was carred out around 9 a.m. Thursday in Banibangou by attackers using eight vehicles and more than 200 motorbikes, the ministry said in a statement. The government said its forces killed dozens of attackers it called 'terrorists,' adding that search operations by land and air were being conduted to find additional assailants. Niger, along with its neighbors Burkina Faso and Mali, has for more than a decade battled an insurgency fought by jihadi groups, including some allied with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. Following military coups in the three nations in recent years, the ruling juntas have expelled French forces and turned to Russia's mercenary units for security assistance. The three countries have vowed to strengthen their cooperation by establishing a new security alliance, the Alliance of Sahel States. But the security situation in the Sahel, a vast region on the fringes of the Sahara Desert, has significantly worsened since the juntas took power, analysts say, with a record number of attacks and civilians killed by Islamic militants and government forces.