Owner of headline-grabbing Montreal swingers club fined $1.4 million for tax evasion

Club L'Orage owner Jean-Paul Labaye and his assistant who calls herself Mapie speak to reporters at a news conference in Montreal Thursday, Jan. 13, 2000. The swingers club is reopening and the owners say there will be no sex on the premises.(CP PHOTO/Ryan Remiorz)

A Montreal non-profit administrator who once operated a headline-grabbing swingers club has been fined $1.4 million by Quebec's Revenue Department.

Revenu Québec says Jean-Paul Labaye, the sole director of non-profit Cercle réciproque, was also sentenced to 12 months in jail after pleading guilty to tax-related charges.

Labaye is known for running a swingers club named L'Orage, which made headlines in the late 90s and early 2000s when his appeal of a conviction for running a common bawdy house made it all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The court's 2005 ruling paved the way for such clubs when it found that consenting adults who engage in sexual activity behind closed doors are not committing indecent acts or harming society.

Revenu Québec says Labaye and Cercle réciproque failed to pay sales tax and provincial income tax between 2015 and 2018, and federal income tax between 2016 and 2019.

The judgment was delivered on April 25 in Montreal after Labaye pleaded guilty to 16 charges.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 24, 2023.