Joe LeClair

Joe LeClair died on the night of Thursday 8 October 2026. Father John Orban of St. Leonard Parish in Manotick told CTV News Ottawa that he had passed away peacefully among family, and Father Dan van Delst of the Catholic Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall confirmed the death to CBC News. His exact age was not given in reports, and the cause of death was not made public. Funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of writing.

Joseph LeClair was born in Prince Edward Island. The Ottawa Citizen reported in September 2018 that he was 60, which places his birth around 1958. He spoke publicly about the pain of his father's alcoholism and about his own struggles with depression. Before his ordination he worked as a teacher and as a social services worker.

LeClair was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Ottawa in the mid 1980s and served in several Ottawa area parishes. Archbishop Marcel Gervais appointed him pastor of Blessed Sacrament Church in the Glebe, then a struggling parish, and over about 13 years he built it into one of the busiest congregations in the city. He hosted a Sunday morning radio show on CFRA and officiated at the wedding of then mayor Larry O'Brien.

In April 2011 the Ottawa Citizen exposed his casino gambling, credit card debts and the absence of financial controls at the parish. He admitted a gambling problem, resigned in May 2011 under pressure from the archdiocese and entered treatment. A Deloitte audit followed, the archdiocese recovered 379,000 dollars through an insurance settlement, and it introduced financial reforms at all of its churches.

In July 2012 Ottawa police charged him with fraud and theft over 5,000 dollars. In January 2014 he pleaded guilty to stealing 130,000 dollars from the church between 2006 and 2011, telling the court: "I have embarrassed and humiliated the priesthood and the church." He was sentenced to a year in jail and a year of probation and was released early, in November 2014.

He then served as an assistant priest at Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity Parish in Moncton, New Brunswick, and later in Guelph, Ontario, where he pleaded guilty to impaired driving in 2016. In 2018 Archbishop Terrence Prendergast returned him to ministry in Ottawa, on call for masses, funerals and evening hospital visits. In his final years he assisted with masses and pastoral care at St. Leonard Church in Manotick.

As a Catholic priest LeClair was unmarried. He was open in public about depression, and in court his lawyer described a serious gambling addiction and the use of alcohol to cope with the stress of leading a large parish. Many parishioners continued to support him through his legal troubles.

LeClair is remembered both for the pastoral warmth that revived Blessed Sacrament and for the fraud that ended his time there. His case led the archdiocese to introduce sweeping financial controls in every parish, while supporters recalled a gifted preacher and caring counsellor.