Supreme Court rejects Quebec woman’s attempt to sue comedian who mocked her son

MONTREAL — Canada’s highest court has put an end to a 12-year legal saga that pitted comedian Mike Ward against the family of a disabled Quebec singer whom he mocked in his routines.

The Supreme Court of Canada today rejected a request to hear an appeal by Sylvie Gabriel, who had been seeking to reverse a lower court decision that dismissed her lawsuit seeking compensation from Ward over his mockery of her son, Jérémy Gabriel.

As usual, the court did not publish the reasoning behind its decision; however, lower courts had dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that the deadline to file legal action had passed.

Jérémy Gabriel, who has Treacher Collins syndrome — a congenital disorder characterized by skull and facial deformities — became a celebrity in Quebec as a teenager after he appeared alongside Celine Dion and the Pope.

Ward mocked Gabriel in his act between 2010 and 2013, joking at one point that he thought the boy’s illness was terminal and people were only nice to him because he would soon die.

What began as a 2012 human rights complaint by Gabriel, eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, which found in 2021 that Ward’s disparaging comments did not amount to discrimination under Quebec’s rights charter.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 9, 2025.

The Canadian Press