Quebec District Court Judge Pierre Labelle said Boisclair’s actions had “devastating consequences” for the two victims, adding that the sentence is sufficiently severe and takes into account the fact that the former politician has shown remorse and pleaded guilty. “The acts committed by the perpetrator are highly reprehensible,” Labelle said, and left “deep wounds” in the dignity of his victims. The two-year-less-a-day sentence — meaning Boisclair will serve his sentence in a provincial prison rather than a federal prison — was jointly recommended by the Crown and Boisclair’s lawyer. It also includes two years of probation. Boisclair, 56, pleaded guilty on June 20 to one count of sexual assault involving another person and one count of sexual assault. The two attacks took place in January 2014 and November 2015 at Boisclair’s Montreal apartment, and both involved men in their 20s whom Boisclair met online. His two victims, whose identities are protected by a publication ban, were present at the sentencing. Prosecutor Jérôme Laflamme said he believes the victims are beginning to feel relief. “We can only hope that from here on out, life will be sweeter for them,” Laflamme told reporters after the sentencing. The sentence, he said, “sends a message that offenses such as these are serious and are severely punished”. In court, Labelle praised the two victims for their courage at the June 20 hearing when they told the court how their encounters with the former politician continue to haunt them. One of the men testified that he suffers from depression and social anxiety and that the ambitious young man he was in 2014 “doesn’t exist anymore”. The man said he dropped out of university and gave up dreams of entering politics as a result of the attack. The other man described his attack as an “open wound that has not healed to this day”. Boisclair’s attorney, Michel Massicotte, declined to comment as he left the courtroom. Boisclair, who was first elected to the provincial legislature at age 23, was once considered a rising political star. He was a provincial cabinet minister and served as leader of the PQ between 2005 and 2007 when the party was in opposition. He was later Quebec’s general representative in New York from 2012 to 2013 and was president of the Quebec Urban Development Institute from 2016 until his arrest.
