(Wendover (ON)) Joele Pharand-Fournier, a reserved and uneventful French-Ontarian mother, was shopping at Walmart with her friend Brigitte Cléroux around 2005 when she wanted to try on a bra. Without doing anything twice, Cléroux is said to have taken off his sweater and tried on the underwear right in the aisle of the store, laughing in front of everyone.
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“I ran away because I was so embarrassed. But Brigitte felt comfortable and had fun. She had extraordinary self-confidence,” says Ms. Pharand-Fournier.
Joele Pharand-Fournier, Brigitte Cléroux’s neighbor in the small eastern Ontario community of Rockland, had no idea at the time that her friend was actually an inveterate fraudster and a fake nurse who would make numerous victims across Canada.
Brigitte Cléroux is currently incarcerated in Ontario, where she is serving a seven-year sentence for impersonating a nurse in Ottawa in 2021. She also faces 14 criminal charges, including for impersonating a nurse at a Vancouver hospital between June 2020 and 2021. She is said to have treated more than 1,000 patients there. And on Wednesday, 12 new people filed civil lawsuits against Brigitte Cléroux for her treatment at the British Columbia Women’s Hospital, court documents show (see other text).
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Joele Pharand-Fournier looks through the documents and articles she has collected about Brigitte Cléroux.
Joele Pharand-Fournier sits in the kitchen of her bungalow in Wendover, from which the strong smell of apple chips wafts, and remembers her years of friendship with Brigitte Cléroux with a mixture of melancholy and anger. For the first time she tells her story publicly.
Already a life full of lies
The meeting between the two women was initially a friendly love at first sight. “Brigitte, she’s the kind of person you can’t avoid. She is so warm […] She is active. “She’s loud. She’s fun to be with,” says Ms. Pharand-Fournier. She also describes Cléroux as a woman with a “big heart” who didn’t hesitate to help her, especially by occasionally pointing out her two Children watched.
At the time of their meeting, Brigitte Cléroux was raising her daughter and working as a nurse at Hawkesbury Hospital, but quickly gave up that job, says Ms Pharand-Fournier.
“She said she had a fight with the boss,” her former friend said. The true explanation is revealed later when Brigitte Cléroux is convicted for using a nurse’s identity to work at the hospital.
According to a 2010 notice from the College of Registered Nurses of Alberta, she will be fined $60,000 and sentenced to six months in prison for this act.
Joele Pharand-Fournier is initially unaware that her friend is lying about her status. After quitting her job as a nurse, Cléroux worked as a French teacher at Philemon Wright High School in Gatineau. “She said she could teach because she had a BS. […] But what are his actual studies? I don’t even know,” admits Ms. Pharand-Fournier.
In an article in Maclean’s magazine published in April 2022, a former student of the Philemon Wright School testifies to the unorthodox teaching of Cléroux, who one day made her watch a pornographic film. Another former student told Maclean’s that he was intimidated by Cléroux, who liked to teach in tight trousers and a leopard-print top.
Escape to the West
In 2006, Brigitte Cléroux moved to Alberta with her daughter and her then-partner. She invites Joele Pharand-Fournier and her family to follow them and settle in the basement of her house, where an apartment is being set up.
Brigitte Cléroux works as a nurse in a clinic in Alberta. She tries to convince her friend to do the same. Joele Pharand-Fournier replies that although she has a course for beneficiaries, she has no nursing training: “I said to Brigitte: “If they ask me for my papers, what should I tell them?” She replied: “Tell them that Your papers are coming from Ontario, but you haven’t received them yet.” » Ms. Pharand-Fournier refuses.
After a year and a half, Joele Pharand-Fournier wants to return to the east of the country. She is leaving Alberta with her husband and children, leaving her belongings at Brigitte Cléroux’s house while she looks for a place to stay, she says. At the same time, Joele Pharand-Fournier found out that she was pregnant for the third time. An unexpected pregnancy. She quickly informs Brigitte Cléroux and wants to give the name of her godmother.
Ms. Pharand-Fournier eventually found accommodation she liked in Ontario. She then sent a truck to Alberta to pick up her belongings. But on site, Brigitte Cléroux refuses to allow truck drivers access, says Ms. Pharand-Fournier. “We were never able to get our furniture back,” she said. The whole house stayed there […] She stole all my memories. All my photos of children. My wedding photos. It’s like we’ve been burned. We have lost everything. »
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Joele Pharand Fournier
Joele Pharand-Fournier is weakened by a high-risk pregnancy and doesn’t have the strength to fight. She breaks off all contact with Brigitte Cléroux. With a sob in her voice, she says that her life is becoming very difficult: “I slept on the floor. Also my children […]. We had to start all over again. »
It wasn’t until a few months later that Joele Pharand-Fournier learned that her former friend in Alberta had stolen her identity, she says. “It takes 10 to 20 years to clear your name. Today I can’t even have a Hydro account in my name […]. I think I’ll have to live with the consequences of this my whole life.
Scam Alerts
In July 2010, Brigitte Cléroux was preparing to be released from prison in Ontario when the College of Registered Nurses of Alberta issued an alert informing “potential employers” that Brigitte Cleroux “has been accused of hiding in Alberta and Ontario to pose as a nurse.”
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Newspaper clipping of an article about Brigitte Cléroux
In November of that year, Cléroux pleaded guilty to 17 charges in Alberta and was sentenced to three years in prison. In the judgment we learn that in June 2007 she was working at the Richmond Square clinic in Calgary and administered injections to two patients there. She also worked as a teacher at a school in Calgary for four months in 2009. The court decision shows that Cléroux submitted two false letters to the court, one supposedly from her best friend and the other supposedly from her stepmother. Judge Barley of the Alberta court writes that Cléroux had the opportunity to work honestly during this time. Instead, she will have chosen to “continue on her dishonest path.”
After his release from prison in Alberta in 2013, Cléroux returned to settle in the east of the country. She will live alternately in Gatineau, Ontario and Vancouver until 2022, her extensive court file shows. She is charged with several other crimes (see other text).
Today, Joele Pharand-Fournier cannot believe that Brigitte Cléroux could so easily deceive so many authorities across the country. She remains characterized by adventure. “Since then, I have found it extremely difficult to trust people. “I haven’t found any real friends since then,” she says.
What do we know about Brigitte Cléroux?
Born January 3, 1972
Number of his convictions since adulthood: more than sixty, mainly for fraud, attempted fraud, theft, identity theft and forgery.
Names used at various times in her life: Brigitte Cléroux, Brigitte Marier, Brigitte Denise Cléroux, Brigitte Fournier, Bridget Clairemont, Mélanie Cléroux, Mélanie Gauthier, Melanie Thompson, Mélanie Smith, Mélanie Cousineau, Brigitte Cléroux Andrews, Brigitte Cartier Cléroux, Brigette Clairoux , Bridgette D Cleroux, Briditte Cleroux, Brigette Denise Cleroux, Brigitte Crooks, Pauline Hobbs Cardinal, Jaymee Bridgette Pavelich, Brigitte D Holloway.