Fraudulent schemes in the granting of teaching contracts at the Faculty of Law of the University of Sherbrooke

Claudiu Popa

Those who know me are aware of the fact that I love teaching and that I taught at the Faculty of Law of the University of Sherbrooke from 2012 to 2024. I know this faculty very well, as well as the people who work there. During these years, I met many wonderful people there, I had wonderful collaborations with professors and fellow lecturers, I had the honor of participating in the training of several hundred lawyers and notaries from Quebec, I learned from them as they learned from me and it was a remarkable experience.

However, few people are aware of the fact that for some time now, I have been targeted by a group of people, some of whom are currently or have recently been members of the Faculty of Law’s management at the University of Sherbrooke. These people have concertedly resorted to all sort of schemes, discrimination, threats, intimidation, reprisals, and harassment against me, for motives that will become evident shortly.

Faced with these abuses, I first prioritized the path of a reasoned, conciliatory, and argued discussion (DPR, the dispute prevention and resolution processes). To no avail; they refused to discuss or negotiate to find a solution to the problem. I then considered the path of a compromise that can be mutually acceptable. Again, to no avail; they maintained the status quo. They even escalated the abuses. Finally, I took legal action to put an end to such abuses. However, as seen in more and more cases, the system in place has demonstrated that it prioritizes protecting the people in position of authority who abuse their power (such people being, after all, "their own"), instead of holding them accountable. I will get back with more details on this observation later.

During this period, several people have often told me that the Canadian state's and its judicial system's unwillingness to deliver justice when the perpetrators or other people involved are close to the system is unacceptable and must be denounced. That the illegalities and abuses they committed cannot and must not be swept under the rug or remain hidden. That obscurity does not serve justice and that light is the best disinfectant.

Therefore, I will tell you what really happened.

The first part of this story is about a professor at the Faculty of Law, responsible for managing the granting of teaching contracts (hiring lecturers), who was caught engaging in deceitful tactics and fraudulent practices in awarding these contracts and who, once caught, made efforts to try to cover up the scandal, minimize the impact of her behavior and sweep the problem under the rug.

At the core of it, a dark discovery

In December 2021, following the granting of a teaching contract done by the management of the Faculty of Law in a manner that did not comply with the rules of the Collective Agreement (admitted as such by the management and subsequently rectified), I conducted investigations in connection with the previous hiring contracts (2015-2021).

After analyzing thousands of pages of documentary evidence from the University of Sherbrooke, a systemic problem of non-compliance with the rules regarding the way the teaching contracts were granted by certain managers of the Faculty of Law of the University of Sherbrooke became evident.

Three types of fraudulent schemes were used to deceive lecturers, depriving them of contracts they would have been entitled to obtain, in order to award these contracts to other candidates who would not have been entitled to obtain but whom management favored :

(1) schemes to circumvent the rules on the seniority of candidates provided for in the Lecturers’ Collective Agreement, in order to give teaching contracts to candidates with no seniority or with less seniority, to the detriment of candidates with more seniority;

(2) schemes to disguise the lack of objective hiring criteria and the lack of an internal hiring procedure (while the Collective Agreement requires such a hiring procedure), in order to hire lecturers through nepotism, favoritism or faculty patronage;

(3) schemes to circumvent the minimum requirements imposed by the Lecturers’ Collective Agreement (any hired candidate must have a minimum of 5 years of professional and/or teaching experience relevant to the course and a master's degree).

To exclude certain candidates who meet the requirements (but whom management does not want), management falsely claims that these candidates do not meet such requirements, that these requirements are mandatory and that management cannot waive them, while, to favor other candidates, who do not meet the requirements but whom management wishes to hire, management waives the requirements or broadens the concept of "professional or teaching experience" to be able to qualify its candidate.

For the candidate that management wants to exclude despite their extensive CV, one of the stratagems used is to evaluate in an excessively “restrictive” manner what can constitute a "professional or teaching experience", what is "relevant or not relevant" among his or her experiences, while, for the candidate that management wants to hire despite insufficient years of experience in their CV, management evaluates in a “broad and inclusive” manner the concept of "professional or teaching experience", and then most of the candidate's past experiences suddenly become "relevant".

Classic double standards.

For example, when the faculty management wants to exclude candidates, management tells them that the Quebec Bar professional training (during which the candidate practices law actively) does not confer professional experience and that this experience cannot be counted in the 5 years requirement, whereas when the faculty management wants to hire a candidate, the same Quebec Bar professional training constitutes a high-level professional experience, that counts in the 5 years requirement.

When they want to exclude candidates, the faculty management tells them that legal research experience does not constitute professional experience that can be counted in the minimum total of 5 years requirement, whereas when they want to hire a candidate, legal research experience constitutes a professional experience that can be counted in the 5 years.

When they want to exclude candidates, the faculty management tells them that their doctorate of law is simply a training (studies) and that the work of a doctoral researcher is not a professional experience, whereas when they want to hire a candidate, his or her doctorate is considered as a professional experience of scientific researcher, and all the years of doctoral research are counted by the faculty management in the 5 years requirement to hire such candidate for a lecturer position.

When they want to exclude candidates, the faculty management tells them that their previous university teaching experience in law (within the same law faculty) does not count or counts very little if it is not identical to that of the content of the new course for which they are applying, whereas when they want to hire a candidate, all previous teaching experience counts, regardless of the area of law he or she previously taught.

When they want to exclude candidates, the faculty management tells them that their previous professional work experience in a legal field that is “related” to the course they are applying for cannot be considered "relevant" for the course since it is only "related" to it and not the same, whereas when they want to hire a candidate, all previous professional work experience in a legal field that is “related” to the course is considered "relevant" precisely because of its connection to the course and it is calculated in the total of 5 years requirement. “Connection” is no longer considered a flaw, but constitutes the reason why these experiences are relevant in management’s eyes.

When the faculty management wants to exclude candidates who worked as lawyers during their higher education, management tells such candidates that it is not possible to work and study at the same time (in order to exclude all the years of work accumulated during this period and thus, not having to count them in the 5 years requirement), whereas when they want to hire a candidate, the management praises their work-study versatility as being a remarkable asset and counts the candidate's years of work in the 5 years requirement.

The corruption discovered in this regard was deep and insidious because it was hidden or difficult to detect, the defrauded candidate often does not have access to the necessary information to compare his or her application to that of the favoured candidate hired in their place by management, management does not denounce itself and does not provide information to determine in which case it has resorted to a “complacent evaluation” and in which case it has resorted to a “draconian evaluation”.

These schemes are carried out using public funds, taxpayers' money.

The investigations also revealed that one of the main people responsible was Marie-Pierre Robert, a professor of criminal and penal law who, between 2015 and 2019, held the associate-dean position that managed the hiring of lecturers.

Professor Marie-Pierre Robert
Source : University of Sherbrooke

The evidence in this regard was overwhelming. The Collective Agreement [1] was clear:

Article 12.08 of the Lecturers’ Collective Agreement at the University of Sherbrooke :

To be eligible for a course assignment, any lecturer must meet the course requirements.

Article 12.02 of the Lecturers’ Collective Agreement at the University of Sherbrooke :

The general requirements for all courses assigned to lecturers are  :

a master 's degree in the concerned discipline;

five (5) years of professional or teaching experience relevant to the course;

Associate-Dean Robert had repeatedly violated these rules by hiring lecturers with only 4, 3, 2 or even 1 year of professional and teaching experience.

For example :

(*These hiring lists are not a commentary on the professionals themselves, their skills, or their ability to deliver excellent courses) 

These illegal practices continued after the end of Marie-Pierre Robert's term as associate-dean in 2019, as she was also the person who managed the hiring process in her area of expertise (criminal and penal law), in particular for her Master's program in the practice of criminal and penal law, of which she was director. This program is the only one in Quebec that trains future prosecutors for the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions of Quebec and defense lawyers subsequently recruited by legal aid (Ms. Robert is also the president of the Board of Directors of Legal Aid in Sherbrooke).

A few examples :

Beyond the clear documentary evidence, this scheme to circumvent the 5-year rule has been confirmed by another lecturer of the Faculty of Law of the University of Sherbrooke, Mr. Stéphane Reynolds, a lawyer with the firm Cain Lamarre.

Source : Cain Lamarre

Mr. Reynolds had essentially admitted publicly that these rules are circumvented by officials at the Faculty of Law when they want to favor or promote the career of a particular candidate. He also admitted that this was also his case at the beginning of his career, confiding in the University of Sherbrooke newspaper :

"On October 20, 1995, Stéphane Reynolds became a member of the Bar. After a first teaching experience that he had really enjoyed, he told a few professors that he was interested in becoming a lecturer. They told him to send his CV, but without getting his hopes high, since the norm was that one could obtain a teaching position only five years after being sworn in. Determined, our leader was not going to be bothered by such a minor detail. Less than nine months after sending his CVs, his boldness paid off : the Associate-Dean of teaching called him to ask if he would agree to give a course on civil procedure just for one year. In the end, he taught three courses. Then, little by little, the number of courses increased and Stéphane Reynolds never stopped teaching"[2] .

Mr. Reynolds had ties to the then Associate-Dean, Louis Marquis, who had invited him to his home with another one of his friends, Jean Charest, the grand ambassador of the Faculty of Law at the University of Sherbrooke, lawyer and former Prime minister of Quebec. Mr. Reynolds recalls this episode : 

“The civil law/common law exchange program that Louis Marquis coordinated with [his wife] Geneviève Cartier in the summer of 1994 went far beyond simply learning about the other legal system. 

We were together 24 hours a day, all in the residences, on the same floor, English-speakers and French-speakers mixed together. Like it or not, we learned to live together! I was responsible for logistics and all the activities outside of class. And there were many social and cultural activities! We even had a BBQ at Louis Marquis's residence, and Jean Charest, then Minister of the Environment, came to eat a hot dog with us.

What I remember from that summer is the richness of the human contacts. Beyond the learning, it is extraordinary to be able to create in a university setting such synergy between people who today find themselves all over Canada, practicing law. We will always maintain a special bond. » [3]

Professor Guillaume Rousseau of the Faculty of Law at the University of Sherbrooke has already addressed this "open secret" (well-known in academia) that "contacts" are invaluable for career advancement :

"Because even if you have the best degrees in the world, if you don't know anyone, you apply, and then you end up being overtaken by others who may have a weaker academic record, but who 'know people'."

A past that caught up with her

When one candidate is favored and hired unfairly as a lecturer, the downside is that other candidates are prejudiced.

Like many other colleagues lecturers, I systematically found myself in this second category.

Since 2015, I had applied annually for various lecturer positions at the Faculty of Law of the University of Sherbrooke, including on 85 available positions in criminal and penal law (my area of expertise). Ms. Robert rejected my application 85 times. 

In my place, Marie-Pierre Robert chose to hire a labour lawyer to teach criminal law, she also chose to hire candidates who were not lawyers and members of the Bar, candidates who did not have practical experience in criminal law, or candidates with less seniority, less professional or teaching experience than me. In a significant number of cases, the candidates favored by Ms. Robert did not meet the minimum requirement of 5 years of experience.

In February 2022, I filed a grievance against this kind of recurring and repetitive violations of the Collective Agreement, for hirings that were made between 2015 and 2021. As I was not the only lecturer in this situation, a fair litigation of this grievance would have had a positive impact on thousands of fellow lecturers at the University of Sherbrooke (in 2022, there were more than 2,500 lecturers at the UdeS, according to the SCCCUS union) and put a stop to institutional abuses (I will tell the story of this grievance in a future publication). In the wake of these events, two of the three managers of the Faculty of Law affected by the grievance left their positions : Sébastien Lebel-Grenier, former dean (2011-2019), left his position as full professor at the Faculty of Law, while Louis Marquis (dean 2000-2004 and January 2020-December 2023) decided not to renew his term as dean and then left "for study purposes" abroad.

As her past caught up with her, in 2023, Marie-Pierre Robert applied for the vacant position of Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Sherbrooke. This position would have given her the means to try to cover up the scandal, minimize its impact, and sweep everything under the rug. At the same time, Ms. Robert's husband, Sébastien Pierre-Roy, was suddenly appointed as judge (by the controversial Justice minister of that time, David Lametti, a former professor at McGill University's Faculty of Law where Ms. Robert completed her doctorate under the supervision of Patrick Healy, another professor at McGill University's Faculty of Law, later appointed to the Quebec Court of Appeal). Mr. Pierre-Roy was appointed as judge at the Superior Court in Sherbrooke, where litigations regarding the Faculty of Law’s management, also impacting Ms. Robert, were ongoing at that time. I will get back on this.

As part of the election campaign for the dean's office, I met with Marie-Pierre Robert and, during a long discussion, problems regarding the way teaching positions were given by management were addressed on several levels. She knew the applicable rules and she knew that these rules were binding, but she falsely claimed to apply these rules in all cases, to all lecturers. The tables (above), however, show that this was not the case and that Ms. Robert was actually violating these rules. I was surprised to see the ease with which she was able to support such false statements with complete serenity.

Concomitantly with these false representations, before the Electoral College, which was set in motion to elect a new dean of the Faculty of Law, Marie-Pierre Robert gave the impression that there were no problems within the Faculty of Law and, to convince her peers to give her their vote of confidence, she tried to reassure them by committing that her future management as dean would be based on "benevolence", "integrity" and "diversity in its broadest sense, both in terms of identity factors and in terms of legal profiles", insisting on the "sincerity of her actions" and on the fact that she had no "personal agenda" for wanting to obtain the position of dean.

However, once she obtained the job, Marie-Pierre Robert immediately used her new position of authority to seek revenge and to intimidate the person who had discovered the fraud she had committed in the granting of teaching contracts. On June 7, 2023, nearly 30 minutes after being announced as dean, her reprisals against me intensified, a pre-orchestrated action having taken place without subtlety : at 4:59 p.m., Marie-Pierre Robert was announced as the new dean and at 5:32 p.m. I was already “suspended” from my position as lecturer for a period of 3 months without pay.

Ms. Robert then continued with other harassing actions and, once she officially took up office in 2024, her actions culminated in my termination from her Faculty of Law, but not before trying to dissuade me from continuing the legal proceedings, by suggesting to me, among other things,  that I was mistaken if I thought that Jean Charest, the grand ambassador of the Faculty of Law of the University of Sherbrooke (a friend of the three managers involved in the legal proceedings) or that the judges would allow my cases to proceed or that I would be successful with these proceedings. She strongly advised me to think about my future, about my doctorate of laws which was then ongoing at the Faculty of Law of the University of Sherbrooke, to think about what the Bar could "think" or "do" in certain circumstances. I perceived these remarks as a direct threat, given that the three Faculty of Law managers affected by the legal proceedings had high-ranking friends in the "disciplinary" bodies of the Quebec Bar, and that Ms. Robert's husband had been a member of the Bar's Disciplinary Council, as was Louis Marquis. Ms. Robert led me to believe that I was going to have problems.

Source : Droit inc.

Ms. Robert's words quickly came to fruition. Jean Charest returned to the Faculty of Law after a long absence and he multiplied his meetings with the managers of the University of Sherbrooke between 2023 and 2025.

From left to right : Pierre Cossette (rector of the University of Sherbrooke), Vincent Chiara (ambassador of the Faculty of Law of the University of Sherbrooke), Marie-Pierre Robert (dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Sherbrooke), Jean Charest (grand ambassador of the University of Sherbrooke)

Source : Université de Sherbrooke

As for the judges, Ms. Robert's words also materialized. After investigation, it was found that the judges who came to judge the cases against these managers of the Faculty of Law (Louis Marquis, Sébastien Lebel-Grenier and Marie-Pierre Robert) were people who had worked for a long time with Jean Charest, for the Charest government or who had ties with said managers or with the Faculty of Law of the University of Sherbrooke. A glaring example is that of Justice Céline Legendre of the Superior Court of Quebec, a friend of Jean Charest, who had worked for nearly 7 years with Jean Charest at McCarthy Tétrault. She also worked with Marie-Pierre Robert's husband (Sébastien Pierre-Roy) for several years in the same firm, after having completed her Bachelor of Laws with Mr. Pierre-Roy and with Ms. Robert at the same Faculty of Law. Among the 200 judges of the Superior Court of Quebec, it was this judge who had been chosen to be "assigned" in two of the cases that were particularly sensitive for the managers of the Faculty of Law at the University of Sherbrooke. University of  Sherbrooke was McCarthy Tétrault’s client.

Source : McCarthy Tétrault

The judges responsible for assigning cases were also close to this group. The Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Quebec, Marie-Anne Paquette, worked for a long time with Céline Legendre and with Ms. Robert's husband at McCarthy Tétrault. The coordinating judge of the Sherbrooke courthouse, Claude Villeneuve, a former lawyer for the University of Sherbrooke, was also a colleague of Ms. Robert's husband while they worked at Heenan Blaikie.

Despite these conflicts of interest, Céline Legendre did everything she could to stay on these cases and judge them, refusing to recuse herself (while adopting an aggressive and recalcitrant attitude towards me), rendering decisions favorable to the interests of this circle of friends. And while the Canadian justice system is experiencing serious delay problems and experienced judges take months to render well-considered decisions, a novice judge barely appointed to the bench in April 2022 (by the same David Lametti who appointed Ms. Robert’s husband), assigned to the cases in April 2024 (only 11 days before the hearing) will have achieved a “record of celerity” : in less than 3 days after the hearing, Ms. Legendre had already "read everything," "analyzed it," "drafted" and rendered a 26-page decision in a dispute involving two judicial review procedures that attacked two arbitration decisions and raised a total of 20 grounds for judicial review.

This example turned out to be a modus operandi for the other cases.

More on this to come.

*****

[1] Collective agreement between the University of Sherbrooke and the Union of Lecturers of the University of Sherbrooke 2020-2025, online : ‹https://www.usherbrooke.ca/personnel/fileadmin/sites/personnel/documents/Conventions/scccus/convention_scccus.pdf›.

[2] Josée BEAUDOIN, « Quand le maître révisite la pédagogie… », (2008) 2-8 Le journal UdeS, 9.

[3] Sylvie COUTURE, « Pour faire avancer une cause », (2004) 17-2 Sommets, online : ‹https://www.usherbrooke.ca/sommets/v17/n2/dos11.htm›.