Ouvre ton jeu avec Marie-Claude Barrette - Entrevue du MarieClub | De l'ombre à la lumière: Claude Paquin brise le silence

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

De l'ombre à la lumière: Claude Paquin brise le silence avec Marie-Claude Barrette.Acquitté le 6 novembre dernier après un long combat judiciaire, Claude Paquin partage son parcours bouleversant dans une entrevue inédite avec Marie-Claude Barrette. Accompagné de Me Nicholas St-Jacques, criminaliste, il revient sur les épreuves traversées et la lumière retrouvée après cette épreuve marquante.Découvrez ce témoignage puissant et inspirant.🔗 Pour un accès illimité à tout le contenu du MarieClub, rendez-vous sur le marie-claude.com.Abonnez-vous pour ne rien manquer des prochaines entrevues exclusives.Activez la cloche pour être alerté des nouvelles vidéos.Rejoignez le Marie-Club et découvrez du contenu inédit chaque mois.#MarieClaudeBarrette #MarieClub #justice #Témoignage #Résilience #ClaudePaquin #entrevue #podcast #balado #Criminaliste

I was in the night, but I'm in the day today. And when the judge asked you, you told him, you took me out of hell. That's exactly it, because it's the opposite. It's hell when you're in prison. In 2022, I had the opportunity to carry out the documentary project Innocence Québec, which was presented by the TVA group, including Sur Moi et Contagnie, and it contained 10 episodes.

And I really discovered the universe, a judicial universe that I didn't know. I learned from each episode. And it's really almost all the cases we've dealt with have really touched me because there's a great injustice in relation to our justice system. So I had the impression that it was justice in the justice system, the Innocence Québec project. So I met exceptional lawyers who do this pro bono,

who will defend pro bono, who will defend people, who say, I am innocent and I want the acquittal, I want this sentence to fall. These sentences, if there is no recognition of your innocence, it will be like this until the end of your days. What I ask is just is just a new trial. As I told you, I've done bad things in my life,

but I never killed. So today, I'm happy to be able to do what we do because in this series, I met Mr. Claude Paquin, who is in conditional release and who hoped to know a law, and that more than 40 years later. So the bail arrived last November 6. So the public prosecutor declared to the court that he was not going to provide evidence in the file.

And as a result, the court acquitted Mr. Paquin today of the two chiefs of charge of the first murder who were on his side. And today, I have the criminalist with me. Hello, Nicolas Saint-Jacques. Hello. Nicolas, you are one of the bearers of the Innocence Québec project. We did the series with you, among other things.

And thank you for being here today because Mr. Paquin was a big case at Projet Inocence Québec. Hello, Mr. Claude Paquin. Hello, Madam. I'm happy because we are currently in the attraction building, the production box, and when we did Projet Inocence Québec, we met here for the first time. And you were, you had a anger inside, on that even if it hasn't been long since you were released, there's already something different. Let's say that... I'm going to put my feet on the ground and...

Let's say that it's a new life. You have to abuse yourself. It's a new life. It's like condemnation. You were in prison for 18 years for this case. Yes, exactly. Because you were falsely accused of a double murder. Yes. So 41 years with a knife in his mouth.

18 years in prison, 23 years in probation. It's not long, it's not even two weeks since you were acquitted. How are you feeling today? Yes, I'm feeling better. I realize more that I'm really free. That's what's important. And it's like a new life, as I tell you. Yes. Soon you'll tell me it's a bit like night and day. That's right. It was a bit like that. I was in the night, but I'm in the day today. And when the judge left you, you told him, you took me out of hell.

That's exactly right, because it's hell. It's hell when you're in prison. You have to live on the navel all the time, anxiety and all that. And with the... As soon as I got there, I thought of making a comeback. I went to the appeal court, I lost. I was in the Supreme Court, I lost too.

On the other hand, I had the right to... Conditional liberation. Conditional liberation, yes. I used that. Now I'm in the outside world and I live more normally. Nicolas, we're talking about freeing up the country, but I want to understand what happened. In spring 2024, you were summoned to court,

and at that moment, they said that you were entitled to a new trial. Exactly. And what happens now? Let's say a new trial and acquittal at a few months' intervals. Yes. In fact, we made a request to review Mr. Paquin's criminal conviction in front of the federal justice minister. And that took many, many years.

And finally, we had a decision last spring. And the minister cannot acqu leave a person directly. So he has to send the file to the appeal court or send the file back to the Superior Court, so order a new trial completely. And what it does when there is an order like that, as in the case of Mr. Paquin, is that we return to the starting box. So it's special because in 1983, Mr. Paquin underwent his trial. We arrive in 2024 and we return to the same situation.

We return, Mr. Paquin is no longer found guilty, but he is accused of two murders in the first degree. So we come back to the situation. Could he have returned to prison at that time? That was a big problem. When it happened, Mr. Paquin was in conditional release. So, conditional release had to respect conditions, but he was in a state of distress.

He was in a state of distress from life in prison, unless he obtained conditional release. When there was an order for a new trial, we went back to the starting point of 1983, so conditionalel ceased. But in 1983, Mr. Paquin was detained in his trial. So we went back to the starting case, and there, technically, Mr. Paquin returned to a status of detained person.

And we were lucky because we had a prosecutor from the Crown who was very understanding. You met her even during the settlement. But that's what I talked to her about, so that we avoid Mr. Paquin returning to detention while waiting for us to lean on his case and decide what we're going to do about it. So we prepared an urgent request to be able to release him. And we filed the request and the next day we were at the Superior Court, and you were there with me.

We freed you. So you never went to jail. The ice was thin. My agent was in that too. We worked together to prevent you from going to jail. We said it doesn't make sense. Even if you spend one day in detention, you spend one hour in detention. You are a victim of a judicial error. We don't want you to go back into the system. We worked really quickly, everyone, and we went to court to come back to the starting point of 1983.

You are released this time. And then there is a whole process. You ask yourself what is going on between the two. So, as we come back to the starting point, the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Crown, has to look at the case and see if it's a case in which we can continue accusing Mr. Paquin. Why are they doing that? Because in some cases, they will still decide to continue.

We saw in the case of Judge Delil, for example, the Crown decided to continue accusing. In in the case of Judge Delil, for example, the Crown decided to continue the accusations. In the case of Mr. Paquin, he had to command the 1983 case. So where is the 1983 case? They went to the archives. 41 years back! So, go back, repatriate the Crown's case,

repatriate the court's case, and look at the new evidence that was presented by the Innocence Project, the new evidence discovered by the Justice Minister. And then they had to look at it and position themselves, to see what they were going to do with Mr. Parkin. Should we continue the trial? Should we stop the proceedings?

Or should we allow him to have a weapon? And it's different. And then we had to look at the case in a way to take it out and position ourselves. We were very lucky because we had conscious prosecutors who did a remarkable job, quickly, they focused on your file, they really focused on that file. And quickly, they were able to have discussions with us at the Innocence Project and to tell us that, after studying their file, they no longer had the conviction that they could get a guilty verdict in your file, given the new evidence and the whole evidence at the time.

So they announced that they would not have any evidence to offer in your file. So what that did is that on November 6th, when we went to court, technically, we told the judge, we're ready to do your trial. And the Crown said, well, we understand that, but we're not going to present evidence in Mr. Paquin's file because we no longer have the conviction

that we're going to get a guilty verdict with all of our study of the file. And the judge, since there was no evidence to offer, will pronounce the acquittal. That's why you were acquitted. So that's different because there are cases where the prosecutor of the Crown will simply decide to withdraw the accusations. There could have been a decision of this kind, to say, we think we may have enough evidence, but that it's been too long in the case,

given the changes in the situation, we decide that we will withdraw the accusations. But for a person who has been a victim of a court error, I think the word acquittal is something significant. Because otherwise, Mr. Paquin wouldn't have heard that word. No, we would have had a withdrawal of accusations. And what does that change in his life, a withdrawal of accusations? Because it has the same purpose, except that there is no acquittal.

That's it, it doesn't change much in fact, in the sense that you could have had accusations that were hanging around your head, except that it's not the same thing, I think. I think that when you heard the word acquittal, that's what you wanted to hear since the 40s. Yes, that's what I wanted to hear. For... If I have an acquittal, it means that I wasn't really there. I've never been in that, in that story.

And unfortunately, they made me do the time too. They believed me to be the Yes, because if we go back, because Mr. Paquin arrived at your place, Project Innocence Québec, in 2008, and the file was treated for 2-3 years, maybe around 2010, something like that, you started working, so you've been working for 14 years. Yes, even if it's a little more before that, I understood, I was talking to Lida, so she explained to me that it was a little before, maybe, finally, but really that we positioned ourselves more on the file, we are talking about those years. Because Lida Nouret, who is the initiator of the Innocence Québec project in Quebec, because it must be said that the Innocence Project exists elsewhere in the world.

And here it is Lida, and there is a program of interns at UQAM, so you have interns who will work for you on the Innocence Québec project. Elida is now a judge at the youth school. So she is no longer attached to the Innocence Québec project. But Nicolas, you're still there. I'm still there and I continue the beautiful initiative she started when she was a student. But it must be said that it is really exceptional to see you. I was still several weeks to see you to do the project of Innocence Québec, the documentary,

and to see all the work, but the heart, the generosity. There's something, there are convictions that come with this project. So what makes, for example, that Mr. Paquin's case, you decided because you have a lot of requests and there are few elected officials. What makes you think that we will do what we need to do because we believe that there could be a gain? Well, in fact, it's a progressive work.

So, obviously, we receive the file at the start. I think the leader you met and at the time who had also dominated the Roschelle, who became a judge. Yes, it's the first one, who also became a judge. Yes, she was the first lawyer in the world who worked in the legal field. She came to get me a certificate where I worked in the media industry. Because you have to say that you all went through the recourse. You went through all the recourse, as you said earlier.

And at that point, we were admissible to the next hearing. That's right. And why do we take a case? Because we primarily look at the admissible conditions, as you mentioned. So all the court records have been exhausted. We also look at if there is new potential evidence in the case. Is there a track of investigation or are there red flags? And in the case of Mr. Paquin, well, it's sure that, well, we had the delator Bernard Provençal. We knew that it was a delator who had perjured himself

in various cases afterwards. He had written a book, Mr. Provençal, also on his past, and what it was about his criminal past, and all his judicial proceedings. So there were already, on the go, let's say, a big red flag called Bernard Provençal. Now we started to dig into Mr. Paquin's file, and why we adopted it ultimately, it's because the more we dug, the more we realized that there were elements that didn't work in the file.

So it's nice to have a report that doesn't seem reliable at first, but we looked at the testimony, we looked at the preliminary investigation, we looked at the statements, we said, listen, something's not working. The more we move forward, the statements are not reliable. There are things that are contradictory in the evidence. And then, quietly, not too quickly, we got additional evidence in the file that was not in the file of the time. And then, the more we moved forward, the more it was confirmed.

Everything was pointing in the same direction, that is to say that Mr. Paquin was not on the crime scene, did not participate, did not order. It had absolutely nothing to do with the two murders. And there were a lot of things that had been done. Obviously, it took a lot of years, as you said earlier, but we met witnesses, so the accused of Mr. Paquin. We got information from the court that allowed us to understand that the crown had changed its position

in relation to one of the accused costs of Mr. Paquin. These were all things that contradicted the testimony of Bernard Provençal more and more, who was the cornerstone of the conviction, because that was it. This is the testimony that was made in court, that was convicted. Definitely, because it was really... There were elements of circumstantial evidence in the file, but it wasn't enough to get a conviction from Mr. Paquin. What you're saying, Nicolas, is that the most important files

are all reading the verbatim, Nicolas, is a lot of work. It's all about reading the verbatim, questioning it, finding the witnesses. It's really a huge job. It's a very big job and I don't deserve to have done it all by myself. I arrived a little later in your case, I arrived a little bit here to collige all this material, prepare the representations for the Minister of Justice. But the background work, it's Lida who did it at the time, Dominique Larochelle, Julie Arinenne also, who arrived at the Innocence Project in 2016,

who finished, if we want, the collection of evidence and the collection of documentation. But it's a team work, and there are many other students that I don't name, but who, at Projet Innocence, have allowed us to get to where we are today. So yes, I'm there with you today, but it's really a team work with a lot of people for several years, who make sure that Mr. Paquin today has been able to recover his freedom. When you hear what Nicolas just said,

all the work to redo your process in a certain way, to go meet people who can arrive with the new evidence How did you experience that, after so many years, people are welcoming you, listening to you, and in relation to that, I summarized that I was leaving. I will not forget that, all those lawyers who helped me. Did it do you any good when you arrived in 2008, you met someone from the project Innocence Québec, who said, hey, we're going to do something for you? Did it do you any good? Yes, yes. Did you do anything for yourself? Yes. I was happy because I had hope. I was hopeful. When we exhausted the judicial recourse, you said, what's left for me?

What's left for me? Oui. Qu'est-ce qui me restait, c'est ça. Qu'est-ce qui me restait, c'est autrement dit, le ministre de la justice. J'avais tout fait pour essayer de m'en sortir, mais mes abocats, ils ont continué à travailler dans mon dossier encore. Puis on a résumé grâce à eux autres de me faire acquitter. C'est important. They were the ones who encouraged me to leave. The students too. They were a big part of it. They took the hours of their time. When we did the Innocence Québec project, we talked to students who worked on your case.

What the students were telling us? For them, it's even better for criminalists, better for lawyers, in the sense that they see how important evidence is, how important a case is, how strict it is to take nothing for granted, and to see that there are humans behind the sentences. You know, There are consequences. And I thought it was nice to hear because it humanizes.

It's like the next project, that young people who go through this program will affect the human and the impact of a decision. You've heard that. And there is the popular belief, Nicolas, because you've had the sentence for 41 years. We always have the impression, Nicolas, that it's a maximum of 25 years, and then everything stops. No, actually, that's not it. We found them guilty of murder in the first degree. It's a life sentence.

So we can stay in whole lives in detention. But we are admitted to conditional release after 25 years. So it allows us to ask the Commission for conditional release to be able to leave, but with conditions, with important restrictions on our freedom. And if, for example, at one point or another, we break those conditions, we can be brought back to prison. And this way of doing or living our lives, it exists for the rest of our lives.

It's a prison full of life. So, Mr. Paquin, in his case, he had to have, we were talking about Epitaph of Damocles, but an Epitaph of Damocles above his head, which would have been there all the rest of his days. And he left earlier than planned, before 25 years, in his case, because there was a procedure in the criminal case that existed at the time that allowed him to ask to reduce the age of 25 to 15 years. So he went before a jury and he got the possibility, not to be released, the possibility.

No, because it took time between your... When you asked and you received, it took time between the two. Yes, I was in the same situation, but... But yes. He told me that I was living in denial. The administration. That I was living in denial, and I didn't think of leaving,

because normally, I think that you't go out until you're full. Exactly. What were they trying to do? They were trying to close the book. They said that I was taking part of the time, but I couldn't do it anymore. I wasn not there. You have to say, I will get to the conditional release, but just before, you said it in one of the interviews, you said to me, you were not an angel. No, I'm not an angel. That's why you were more easily condemned than someone else, because you already had a file. Exactly. You had already committed crimes that were not of the order at all, you had committed a murder and you had nothing to do in that case.

But you were not an angel. You knew that. I was never an angel. That's it. When I fell into conditional liberation, excuse me, when I fell into conditional liberation, I knew that I had to be,

excuse me, an expression, I said to myself in a different way, I'm going to eat the It's a progressive release of freedom. We're released conditionally, so what does that mean? It means that if we break our conditions, we can be returned to the prison walls. It's very important to understand that.

That's what makes us feel like a damocles, or in a way, I want to put it in a figurative way, but inside the prison, it's a big cage. But when you go outside, you have a different cage. It's an invisible cage, but it's still there. There are still bars somewhere. There are still invisible bars. That's it. And if you cross them, you go back with the bars in iron. So, and the kind of conditions we're going to have are conditions that will be reduced

over time. But at the start, we'll usually go through a transition house. So we'll be inside a place that's still supervised. We have fire shelters. So for example, we can go to work, but we have to come back to the transition house at night. In some cases, we have drug tests to see if, for example, we can go to work, but we have to come back home at night. In some cases, we have drug tests to see if, for example, we consume. We have an prohibition to consume alcohol at the start, prohibition to consume drugs,

prohibition to meet people who have antidepressants in court, prohibition to meet certain places. So we have a lot of restrictions in what we can do. And everything has to be approved by the correctional agent, the conditional release agent, who will be our supervisor. So if we want to find a job somewhere, it has to be through the conditional release agent. We can't decide what we do in our life. If we want, for example, to stop following a therapy or stop, it still has to be approved.

So everything goes, our life is managed, if we want, by following a therapy or stop, it still has to be approved. So everything goes, our life is managed, if we want, by a condition agent that we have to see very frequently at the beginning. And with time, the conditions will be reduced. So quietly, not quickly, we will need to see our condition agent, but less often. Instead of seeing it every week, we will see it every month, possibly every three months.

After that, we have conditions, for example, there are urine tests, after a while, there are no more urine tests because we trust the person. All this is progressive, but if we break a condition, if we have the misfortune of having a driving disability, we can be brought back into it at any time, no matter the age. Mr. Parkin, until 81 years old, if he did something wrong, and we're not necessarily talking about a crime, a qualified crime. We can, for example, go and consume alcohol if we don't have the right to,

or go to a place where he wasn't allowed to go. But he's 50 km away and more, let's say he gets arrested in Quebec. Exactly, he gets arrested in Quebec by chance. For example, he was with a friend, nothing was done wrong. Nothing was done wrong, except that he broke his condition of not being outside a 50 km perimeter. Well, that's a condition that he broke, and technically, he could be arrested.

That doesn't mean he's going to be, but he could be. So itered in detention. That doesn't mean it will be, but it could be. So it's still... But as soon as you break the trust, I imagine even if you don't go back to the detention center, your agent... Well, it's tightened. So after that, instead of seeing your agent once every three months, like at the end, it will be transferred to every month or every week. There will be a follow-up.

We're going back in the case. We're going back, exactly. Because that every month or every week. We're going to step back from the case. Exactly. That's what makes you anxious. I remember when I met you, how scared you were of breaking a condition. Well, yes. You asked to go by car, you said no,

especially since we're over 50 km. It's really something that's impregnating, we don't want to step back. So it's taking a conditional release. It's demanding and it's demanding until the end of the sentence, until we have a permit. In Quebec, I had to ask my brother for permission to visit Quebec. He had to have a permit. I had to have a 12- a permit. I had a permit for 12 hours. 12 hours? So you had to come back in the 12 hours?

Yes. And I found it too hard. I couldn't go back to Quebec with my brother. It was too tiring. In case you missed the car. I don't know. 12 hours is too much. We don't make a big val when we leave at 12 o'clock. No, no. For example, have you worked during these years?

Yes, I have worked. Is it harder to find a job when you're on probation? It's not easy, especially when you don't have a big instruction. It's harder, of course. I didn't have a high school degree. In addition, it's like a task on a file when you're on probation. Évidemment, j'avais pas de secondaire de secondaire 5. En plus, c'est comme une tâche au dossier quand on est libéral. C'est sûr, mais à l'hôpital, j'ai été faire des applications et on m'a dit... Ils m'ava appris, ils m'ava appris, les deux hôpitaux m'ava appris, Notre-Dame et Saint-Luc, dans ce temps-là.

Ils m'ont dit, faut vous emmener... Saint-Luc at the time. They told me, you have to take, in other words, they wanted to take me, but you have to get a five-year degree. Secondary five? Secondary five. I didn't get it. It was more difficult for me. Well, a while ago, I saw a lady who worked at JSPAC, who was in charge she was there. Then she hired me to work at Jessupac.

After that, I worked at 357 La Commune a little before, where there were important people who went there. So you managed to work through those years? I worked. I worked all the time since I was a child. Yes, because you have to earn your living, you have to pay your rent. And at the same time, your social life, it looks like, you know, when you can't go more than 50 kilometers. No, I left my friends, my family, because there are several that I... I went to see my parents and everything. And then, my mother died when I was there.

I tried to have a really serious life, not to make a fool of myself. I went crazy. Because you always had a place in prison. No Did you always have a place in prison? No. Did you always have a place in prison? When you were released, you had a condition. Yes, yes. It wasn't long before you went up there.

There was no trial if you went back there. No, no. You didn't want to go back there? No, no. What do you remember from your years in prison? From my years in prison? What do you remember from that? What I remember is that the only thing that helped me was working in prison. I always worked in prison.

I did the cleaning, I worked five days a week. I took care of the detainees who received visits, community visits. I prepared always busy. They were always busy. They were always happy with my work. It was more than easy. It was more than easy. It was more than easy. It was more than easy. It was more than easy. It was more than easy.

It was more than easy. It was more than easy. It was more than easy. It was more professional. It was a condition that you were a good citizen in prison. Yes, exactly. And I know you talked about your brother, among other things. You would like to travel. How did your brother react after the announcement of the retirement? He's happy, my brother. He's happy.

Part of my family is happy. But they told me, You're not going to pass your exam. You're going to get a B. I was talking to my lawyers, how they worked for me, and how they helped me a lot. They believed in my lawyers too.

They said I had good lawyers, and they kept on fighting. Did you celebrate? He said that I was going to be a good lawyer and that I would continue the fight. Did you celebrate? Not really. No. No? No. I went to get a beer with a man who worked at a hospital. He worked at Jean-Marie, but his name I don't remember. To celebrate that? To celebrate your death? I went to get a We celebrated it with him.

What are your dreams? You are 81 years old. There is no more than 50 km. No. When you were met in the Innocence Québec project, you had a friend who hoped to bring you to Gaspésie. Yes. It was impossible.

In Quebec. In Quebec, with your brother, you say you want to go to Cuba. Yes. Do you think it will come true? I don't know yet. Would you like to do it? Not yet. I think my uncle...

For the trips, when you go, if you get sick there, you have to get insurance. Yes, insurance. Yes, I understand. But beyond insurance, is it something you would like? Because now it's possible. Try a week, yes. I understand. But beyond insurance, is there something you would like? Because now it's possible. I'll try to play for a week, yes. Yeah? To start. Did you go out of Montreal?

No, my brother didn't sign up for it. Ok, you didn't? You didn't say you would sell me a car and... No, no. No way. What do you call it? Well, yes, because you could do an O.L. any time. I could do that. I don't know. I'm too used to it.

With the conditions I had. That's it. You were too used to it. It's like a prize in your hand. What you have to understand is that it's like that. You were always watching. Yes, that's it. And then all of a sudden, you didn't want to.

Yes, that's it. You are completely free. You couldn't get back to that. Well, I realized that I'm free. But still, he's still with a... Yes, but it's recent. Yes, it's recent, that's it. Maybe with time, you'll go a little further, a little further, and then one year it will be different.

Maybe, that's it, exactly. And when you were in the correctional center, how did the other detainees behave with you? I never had any trouble with the detainees. Did they believe in your innocence? Yes, many detainees believed in my innocence. Several detainees that I knew well, they knew me from outside, and they knew I hadn't done it. They told me. They thought it was safe.

But the detainees never have any trouble with the others. Because you don't do it... If you don't do it with a detainee... You don't cause trouble? Yes, with a detainee. But there's no reason to have any problems. You have to pay your debt all your life, even in prison. As a citizen,

as a citizen, I mean, being part of a system, where there is a judicial system that is there to protect people, when I hear what happens to Mr. Paquin, I tell myself that as a society, he went through it. We made a very serious mistake. And there is a price to that. Will there be any follow-up?

I know it's recent in your office, but it's revolting to see that someone is accused unjustly following a testimony from a delinquent and that it took so many years, you know, you went through all the processes to get to the Innocence Québec project, to finally be acquitted. Will there be a compensation?

Because I think that as a society, we have to pay off a life like Mr. Paquin's. Well, that's a very good question. And I don't think there will ever be a lot of money that will be able to compensate the the minutes, days, weeks that Mr. Parkin spent in prison. I don't think we can understand if we haven't lived through it. We can't quantify the value of that without having gone through it. But there are certainly some requests. These are damages, so we can get compensation

if the state has made a mistake. In the case of Mr. Paquin, without pronouncing the legal opinion, because we haven't talked about it yet, but if the state didn't disclose evidence at the time or did things in the process that shouldn't have been done the way it was done, there is a possibility to go and get money to compensate for the damage that was created, which is a damage in terms of losing opportunities in life, restrictions on freedom. We also talk about psychological damage. A person who is a victim of a judicial error,

it's unthinkable the damage that it can create on a psychological level. Because everyone, it's like we were saying, the state, the judge, the crown procurer, the witnesses, everyone, the agents of liberation we were talking about, everyone says to us, Mr. Paquin, you did it, the crime, you did it, you are guilty. And not only that, we tell you, you are guilty. There is a judge who says you were guilty, in fact a jury,

so there are 12 citizens who say you were guilty. So, you know you didn't do it, but everyone tells you you did it, and you have to go through the process. And through conditional release, as you mentioned earlier, we try to make you admit the crime a little bit, because we want you to be able to rehabilitate yourself. We want you, the first step is to say, well, I did it to be able to work on myself, to seek psychological help, help that we need to become an active member of society.

So everyone pushes in that direction, and you, on your side, you know you didn't do it, you weren't there, you never commanded this murder. So there's always a fight against that. It's like a constant pressure, so we found them guilty, but we continue in the sentence to say, well, you have to put it in, Mr. Parkin. Exactly. And in that case, it would be 41 years. Yes, and Mr. Paquin never admitted it.

He never admitted it, and that's what's special, because even when we look at what happened at the level of admissibility or conditional release, Mr. Paquin asked for his release to go from 25 to 15 years. I mentioned it to you earlier. That's an exceptional procedure. And generally, when we benefit from this procedure, it's because we've admitted crimes and we've worked on ourselves. We've changed so much between the time of the Crime Commission and the time we speak

to the jury 15 years later that it's changed. It's like a redemption. It's like a redemption to say, I've done so much. Let me prove it. Let me trust you. That's it. Let me trust confident. Or, trust me. That's it, but Mr. Parkin is not the one who did it. You got to nothing, basically.

No, Mr. Parkin came to me and said, I didn't do it. I told you 15 years ago, I didn't do it. I'm telling you again, I didn't do it. So that's exceptional already that the jury allows him. Well, I think the jury must have believed him at the time. Because otherwise, I don't see how the jury could say, well, we're going to allow that man the benefit of reducing his admittance to conditional release without us believing it, because we say, well, otherwise it's a danger.

He comes to tell us again that he didn't commit the crime, but it's a double murder. Because in other cases, we refuse, unless we don't. And again, conditional release, we let it out afterwards, which is still exceptional. But Mr. Parkin, from the beginning, says that he has not committed crimes, and the people who know him, the people who have seen him up close, are also convinced of his innocence from the beginning. Well, he had to fight for a very long time. But that still has a value somewhere.

Even if we can't quantify it, there has to be a... You know, the prejud disadvantages are so immense. As a society, we can't say, well, you know, what's done is done. It can't be that. Well, I think the first thing that we can at least admire the situation is that society has been corrected. Yes.

That is to say that we still have the courage to say, Mr. Bacquet, we made a mistake. We have a mechanism that allows it. Yes, and that's already a lot. But you're right. After that, do we have to quantify it in terms of monetary? That's something we'll discuss again, because we talked about it very quickly, but we weren't there yet in our process. I hope you have time, but we have to do it, Mr. Paquin,

because honestly, you know, I, as an active citizen, I hear that, and it takes a repair somewhere. And, you know, the repair has to be done also by the financier. I mean, it's been a difficult life that you've had, and there was a mistake that was admitted. So, from the moment we admit the mistake, in whatever, there's something that comes as compensation. When I asked for a 15-year-old liberation, I met several little

doctors and psychologists. The reports helped me too. And the agents of the conditional liberation also believed me, but they were like... They weren't sure. They didn't want to move forward on that because I was a prisoner, but they were not sure. They didn't want to move forward on that. Because I was a prisoner, of course. But you have...

They marked my life. It's over. We can't go back. What changed you? You know, I talked about it earlier, but when we met, we met a few times, but the first meeting we had, you had an extremely high level of anxiety. Yes.

So, did that anxiety come with what you knew as a sentence? Yes, that's it. It's part of it. But on the other hand, I was told that I was going to fight. What makes you decide to fight despite all these people who condemned you? What made you continue this force? Because at one point, I wanted to commit suicide. I decided to juggle it and maybe start to commit suicide. We're afraid of that. I decided, no, no. I'm going to fight.

It always hit me in the head, go ahead, fight. You have to be strong, morally, above all. But psychologically, I can't be the same guy I was before the murder. Do you understand?

It broke you, didn't it? It broke me. I can't be the same guy I was before the murder. You know what I mean? It broke you, huh? It broke me. It broke me. It broke me. I have to live with it now. How were you before? Even if I tell you that I left, OK, I left.

But we can't take away those 41 years. I can't take it away. That's it. You can't change it day after day. But how were you before? Did you have more confidence in yourself? Yes, I was happier. Where did you go looking for happiness in the last few years?

I didn't have happiness. I was going to be honest with you. I didn't have happiness. I had hopes, but happiness... No. but happiness? No. It's hard to explain what we can live with. I find it a bit suffocating, because it's like there are always walls around you. It blocks me a bit, yes, honestly. I'm even surprised to have done interviews with you and even with the show.

Yes, you were there for a while. We didn't even know how to work with that. I did my best. But it remains that I am marked. Even if I become a millionaire, I am marked by all these sentences. She marked me with the sentence. But in class, I said, No, I can't stay lying.

I knew she wasn't going to commit. But I find you very strong and very courageous. Because I find you courageous to have gone through everything you've been through. Because precisely, to say, I want my conditional freedom, even if it's, we're going to change the procedure a little, we're going to activate things.

It's dying or getting up. You decided to get up, and you went, you know, you knocked on the doors of Projet Inocence Québec. Exactly. And in the, have there been many cases at Projet Inocence Québec, like Mr. Paquin, where there is a No, it's quite rare because it's a process that is extremely complicated. In the case of Mr. Parking, it took more than 14 years just to complete. And there are ups and downs. Mr. Parking, I know that at one point you were discouraged because it was so long. I wanted to let go.

You wanted to let go and it was Lida who convinced you at the time to say, Mr. Parking, you can't let go. Why do you want to let go? I'm tired and tired. She convinced you at the time to say, you can't give up on someone. Why would I give up? I was tired and I was tired. And then someone told me, I thought of her. If we're talking about that, that's the discussion that took place.

It was a turning point. Because there are some who would still be emotional at that moment. But Lida encouraged me a lot. Yes. Nida, Julie, everyone who was in my case. It's a duty for others to believe in you. Yes.

You saw that others believed in you. They were right to believe in me. That's it. Because I was dead with it. All my life, I... I can't say I didn't do it. You would have been dead with that sentence. What hurt me was losing my freedom

for two things I never promised. You know? It's a bit of a for the others who died. I have nothing to do with that. Because you weren't even there. I wasn't there at all. There's nothing to do with that. I worked for Benin Provençal.

And... And... Let's see. He decided to... I lived on the other side of the track with him. I was doing illegal things recently, but nothing bigger than that. All that, I tell you... That's not what I'm telling you that... I'm going to die, and if I die, I'll die with that,

because I didn't do it. That's all. Well, the agents were saying, why don't you take a little time, Mr. Pompkin? Why are you asking me to take time that I didn't do it? They said, yes, but you were found guilty by a jury, but don't forget that. Yes, it's true. I was found guilty.

I didn't do it. I have to live with it. You believed in the denator, and not me. It takes a lot of perseverance. It takes a lot of perseverance. I think indirectly. Yes, and that's what we see. We see with Mr. Parquin, You asked earlier if there are many cases of

national projects that we have managed to do. There are not many, because there are not many in Canada either. Every year, the Minister of Justice will be able to order a measure of reparation in about one file a year, sometimes two, and years that don't have any at all. So we're talking about one to two cases, maybe per year, on the entire criminal condemnation in Canada. So this kind of case is very, very rare. And why? There are several reasons that explain this. The first is that most of the criminal offenses are corrected in the road. So the appeal court will intervene, the Supreme Court will intervene,

so it's corrected in the process. But also a big problem of accessibility to justice in general in terms of this kind of file. Because, you see, Mr. Paquin came to our door, to the door of the legal aid at the time, after that to the Innocence Project. But when we calculate the number of hours that have been spent in his file, I think, and I didn't calculate everything, because at some point, we look at all this, but when we put all the pieces together, we're talking about above a thousand hours of work, pro bono. So it's not easy to find people

who will want to contribute like that for as long as, we're talking 14 years in this case, a thousand hours, more than a thousand hours of work. So we can't make a lot of files like Mr. Paquin's, unfortunately. So we have a few. We have other files. We have a file from Marc, who is currently in front of the Cour d'appel du Québec.

He too, we are very advanced. The Justice Minister has given a measure of reparation. We had another file in 2014 where we had a lawsuit in front of the Cour d'appel du Québec. He's someone who was accused of sexually assaulting his half-brother 20 years ago. So we had cases like that. We're in the third case, I would say, in which we had a cause gain. But it's not easy. It's quite rare. And cases like that we saw from Mr. Parkin, 41 years later.

I don't know about that. Currently in Quebec, there are situations like that. And cases where the Crown really said, we don't have enough evidence in our case. We don't agree and we still want to continue. We looked at the case and now with what we know... Because you managed to find other evidence through your research. You came up with other elements.

Exactly. And in Mr. Packing's case, as I mentioned earlier, Bernard Provençal's testimony was the cornerstone or the masterpiece of the case. Because there were accused courts, and Mr. Provençal, what he was saying, he was the one who was telling the story, how it happened. So he said, listen, we were at Mr. Paquin's house, and Mr. Paquin had ordered the murders, I was upstairs with Mr. Paquin,

the murders were committed underground, here's how it happened, here's how we arranged the rooms. So he was the one who was telling the story, he was involved himself, as if it were a crime, but he also said, I was there and I can tell you what happened. But over time, we found several elements that completely contradicted the version of the Provençal's daughter. For example, Provençal said that one of the accused of Mr. Paquin, had committed one of the two murders,

by shooting two bullets in the head of one of the victims, Mr. Bourgoin. And then, the Crown received privileged information, we still don't know what it is today, so we couldn't support an accusation of murder at first at the place of the accused, Mr. Paquin. And then we allowed this accused to plead guilty to a complicit defamation after the facts, so to have disposed of the bodies. But it's because Mr. Provençal said that he was the one who shot the victim in the head

and the information that the Crown has in his possession afterwards is that it wasn't him. It was the one who disposed of the bodies. So it's major because it changes the risk. Who was the one who shot the victim? So it's major because it changes the risk. So it's already there. But it wasn't disclosed at the time to Mr. Parquin. After the conviction, it should have been done at that time. There are other elements. Mr. Telmos, who was the other accused of Mr. Parquin,

who testified in the court of his trial, but obviously he wanted to apologize. So he said, I didn't participate in the crime and all that. But later he gave a version that was tested by a polygraph test. And then he explained, listen, Mr. Paquin, I didn't even know him at the time. But yes, I was on the crime scene. I can tell you, it didn't happen at Mr. Paquin's house because I know what happened. I didn't commit the crime as a test.

I didn't participate in the murder commission, but I disposed of the bodies, by the way. Because the bodies were moved. You have to understand that they were not found in the place where the crimes were committed. Exactly, according to Mr. Pavançal, the crimes were committed in the residence at Rivière-des-Prairies, and the bodies were found in Saint-Andre-des-Lacs, in the forest, I think they had been eaten a little by animals. In Saint-Andre-, yes. That's right. And then, this second person, this second accused, came to say, well, I participated in the disposal of the bodies, but I was there, I was there. It wasn't Mr. Paquin. They don't know Mr. Paquin.

No. So there you have two accused, two people who were on the scene, two people who participated in the disposal of the bodies, who basically came to say, well, Mr. Parkin has nothing to do with this story. And that's the first thing, but we found other things too. Among other things, Mr. Provençal, the delator, he perjured himself in several files after the trial of Mr. Parkin, and also tried to extort his version of the facts.

So he tried, he produced a statement of evidence in which he completely changed his version of the facts. So he tried, he produced a statement of evidence in which he completely changed his version of the facts, but he also tried to bribe through time. So he said, listen, I'm ready to give you a new version, but I would have to pay a lot. So there you see the reliability of a testimony from a person like that, we can put it back in doubt in a fairly important way.

Then we also discovered that he had received the advantages by the police at the time to testify, the advantages that had not been disclosed to the defense. So money, for example, or we closed our eyes on crimes that had been committed, for example. All things that are normally important in the context of a trial so that we can disclose it to the jury to say, listen, this debater is here to testify, but be careful what he says because there were advantages to tell the jury. To say, listen, this So the scene of discovery of the corpses and the crime scene, which was in league. We can't go into details with you today because there are confidentiality disorders. But it would doubt the whole way it happened, where the crimes would have happened. And so all of this together, look, it was doubtful at, it was doubtful at the base, but when we replaced the evidence together...

It was Mr. Paquin coming in nowhere in there. Well, it's that basically everything pointed out elsewhere than to Mr. Paquin, while we tried to point it out to Mr. Paquin in the process. When we have that in our hands, Nicolas, all these evidence elements that are added, we must want our justice system to be fair. I imagine it must be something that we really need to convince them of. There's a pressure that comes with it.

When we have all this in front of us and we say we need to achieve a win, it's a challenge. It's a challenge and it's not us who make the decision. That's right. Because if it was me who made the decision, it's been a long time since we've won. But the problem is that it's not us who make the decision at the end of the line. That's it! Because if I was the one making the decision, we would have left you a long time ago. But the problem is that it's not us. So you have to go up the case, and you have to go up it in a serious way,

because we don't have several costs. That is to say that if we miss our cost, we can come back, but it's not that bad. So you have to work hard to ensure that you present it in a more complete way. But the reason is that it's a huge pressure because we believe in the file, and even if we do it for the benefit, we put all the hours to make sure that we can... Can the system be improved?

Of course, of course. Can the system be improved in various ways? There's the question of avoiding judicial errors as much as possible. And that, files like Mr. Paquin, when it happens, and the question of avoiding the most possible judicial errors. And when cases like Mr. Paquin happen, it's a bit of a blow to the system. It's a reminder that you have to be careful. You have to be careful when you work with reporters, in your case. But more generally, when you're a prosecutor, you have to work consciously

and make sure that your don't cut corners, that we spread the evidence to the defense, and that we allow a debate that is contradictory to the court and that allows the defense to make its point of view. And when you're a defense lawyer, you have to work back and forth. It's back and forth for our client, making sure that we're able to present everything to the judges, obviously within the limits of what we can do in a justice room, but we have to push the entire defense plan as much as possible

so that the judge or the jury can make an adequate decision. So, cut corners, not work fully in a file, say the file is not paying, so I can't move forward. These are all things we shouldn't do. I'm not saying that it's done every day, but... There are still lessons to be learned from that. But it's a reminder. It's a reminder to say,

make sure everyone does their job as best as they can. Because when you don't do it, there's a possibility that situations like Mr. Parkin's will arise. We can't accept that as a justice system. It will happen. It will happen again, unfortunately. Because it's a system based on humans. We look at it, we start from the beginning of a file.

We have witnesses who are met by police officers. And then we report to the prosecutors of the Crown. And eventually, there is a defense lawyer who will work on case, and a judge who makes a decision, a jury. This is a human chain. So there may be mistakes along the way, but we must try to minimize them as much as possible. And to avoid tunnel vision too. Well, tunnel vision, which is indeed when we talk about cutting corners, or when we talk about tunnel vision, it vision is that we focus on one person. Because in that moment, the witness put himself on a track and we continued on that track.

Well, that's what we believed in. That's what we believed in at the time, the denator. The denator says that, perfect. There are no proof elements that corroborate his testimony. It's okay, he says it, we're going forward. That's how this case was worked at the time. While there were indicators, maybe, that showed that, were indicators that showed that it wasn't how it happened. Can we really trust the It's a case of tunnel vision in part. There are other situations, other files in which, precisely,

the police or prosecutors adopted a tunnel vision that ensures that the evidence elements that can help the accused are not harvested, are not studied, and we only get evidence elements that corroborate the theory of the guilt of the accused. And that's very dangerous, because sometimes the defense can't find elements that the police can get from them. So yes, indeed, these are things that need to be avoided.

Because anyone who's watching us right now, sitting in a classroom, and being told that we're afraid of something that we haven't done before, as you said, it's horrible. You've seen it yourself. on a buffet, par tout le monde, tu sais, comme tu disais. C'est épouvantable, vous l'avez connu, vous, ça? Moi oui, j'ai vu que ça, moi. Avant, ils croyaient aux délateurs, les jurés. Ils croyaient, je suis certain, aux délateurs. Les délateurs, dans ce temps-là, ils mettaient sur un pied de stade. Ils avaient revenu dans le bon chemin.

Oui. Tu sais, ils voulaient plus dans le crème, pis ils voulaient pour son fils, ils voulaient pas que son fils fasse la même chose que son père. He wanted to be in jail for his son, he didn't want his son to do the same thing as his father. But when he finished his sentence, he returned to do armed robberies that the police gave him places to go and steal. That's right.

When I think about it, he was arrested, that's the proof. He was arrested, I can't remember. Did you have a long time of anger? When I think about it, they stopped me, it was the proof. They stopped me, I couldn't believe it. Did you have a long time of anger? Oh yes, I was... Yes, yes, I was disappointed, especially. I lived through anger. Yes, I was angry in the Provence.

I was angry, but I was realizing that I was destroying myself. To anger someone else. To anger someone else. I didn't want to hurt anyone else. I said no, no. That's when I continued to learn the procedures with my... and try to get out of this hell,

as they say in Paris. And... it's hard. I never understood why they did that to me. I was in a hole in the We knew he wasn't there. We asked you to come to the trial with Bernard Provençal to confirm what Bernard Provençal was saying, to get other guys in prison. And you told me, my father, to be a denator. You refused.

I'd rather die than be a denator. I was ready to pay when I did it, but not. Not to become a deleter on the backs of others. Do you understand? Exactly. To be good. In the end, you paid for what you didn't do. I paid a lot, that's for sure. I can't come back.

What can we wish for you from now on? From now on, I'm trying to live my new life. In fact, it's a new life for me. But I want to go back to Lille. And then my son went back to my school. Ah, tell us about your son. I didn't see my son anymore. I was 41 years old.

I may have seen my son six times in my life. That's all. J'étais sur 41 ans, j'ai vu peut-être mon fils dix fois dans ma vie. C'est tout. Là, il m'a appelé, puis je me suis dit, je voulais pas le voir il y a longtemps. Puis là, j'ai décidé de le voir, puis dire que moi j'ai des défauts. Tout le monde a des défauts, on peut faire des erreurs. C'est mon con moi aussi qui a fait des erreurs. I said, we can make mistakes. My friend also made mistakes. And then I decided to contact him because he was in Honolulu, Quebec,

in Honolulu, Quebec, Lake Saint-Jean, I think. Saint-Georges-de-Beau. That's another big consequence. Isolation. Isolation alone was scary. I spent Christmas alone. I spent it in the cell.

So much I spent Christmas alone that now, at Christmas, I try to be alone. It's my life. But you developed a familiar way of doing things that look like you, because of the strength of things. But I still want to talk about your son, what age is he? My son is 50 years old.

And you are now renewing. He lost me at the age of 7. He lived through frustration here. He didn't tell me because I wasn't there to help him. Otherwise, I would have met him here in Montreal when I was working in the station. So that's part of your new life, to get closer to your son. Yes, that's it. I'm sorry to judge. I'll try to understand his situation. Right now, that's what I have to do.

Yes, from now on, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? He wants to see me, obviously. Then we're going to fix a day tomorrow that he'll be able to come to our house. We're going to talk a little. Not much. I'll send you all the information back. For the first half, normal half with your son. Yes. I'm happy it's the same.

We'll adapt one to the other because it's been years. It's been years. That must be relieved somewhere. No. When he called me, it's for sure that he called me a couple of times, in the past or even. But I wasn't ready to see him. Now he called me to congratulate me on my retirement.

I was happy for you. If you want to call me, you can call me anytime. And if you don't want to see me, I'll understand. I'll call him. He was happy. He was really happy. It's part of your new life. It's part of my life, I think.

Let yourself go in there. He's your son. Yes, and he's open. He's happy for you. Yes, that's right. That's why I want to try to know where I'm going with him. It's beautiful to say that, but when you're one year old, you haven't seen your son for how many years? It's for sure that it's a relationship that has to be built. Yes, to build.

Because trust is for me, it bothers a lot of people. It's very little. But Mr. Paquin is open. He is open and you are free. Yes, that's it. And he is your son. Yes, exactly. It's something beautiful to come in this relationship.

Yes, he is my son. But indeed, to build it is a passion. You have to build it, as you say. Exactly. I don't know if you have anything to add. I think we did an incredible job. Nicolas? We are very happy for Mr. Paquin. It's a lot of work, but ultimately, it's Mr. Paquin who was the bravest in all of this

and who was the most persistent. It hasn't been easy, but he's here today, and I hope you'll be able to renew, to build, and to go through that. To you, the lawyers, Leda, and all those people who worked here, all the lawyers, who really worked for me, I'm back here, I won't lose you without that.

You know? It's great, it's their work, it's theirs. Don't forget that, that world. It comes from my heart and I appreciate it a lot because there are a lot of people who don't do the same thing as others. It's mostly very human. The main thing is their cry. They're human. It's up I think. So, I'm trying to tell you the best I can, Madam.

You're very right. Thank you. Thank you very much.