Justice fears that “several” children are currently “forgotten” for years in inadequate foster families by social services in the Far North of Quebec.
This apprehension is expressed in a judgment that condemns the local youth protection department (DYP) to pay $25,000 to a young Inuit woman whom she abandoned without follow-up and without services for more than 10 years under a roof where reigned violence and alcohol. She spent her entire childhood there, from 2006 to 2018.
The situation of Anna * “beyond understanding”, wrote judge Peggy Warolin, of the Court of Quebec. “As early as 2007, the director received disturbing information about the safety of the child in his host environment. Gold, […] no action is taken to verify the information and ensure the well-being of the child. »
The girl had arrived in her foster family in 2006, to be adopted. This process, however, stalled, probably because the father was accused of sex crimes against minors. Rather than being removed from this home, Anna was instead completely “forgotten” there by social services, without the DYP intervening again in her life in any way before 2021. The family continued to receive a check to support themselves.
The biological children of the foster family were even removed in 2017, after several reports, in particular because they used drugs with their mother. Height of disorganization: even at this time, Anna did not return to the radar screen of the DPJ.
She had to be the subject of a report for serious behavioral problems herself to be finally taken care of.
“If the situation of the teenager has been able to pass under the radar during all these years, despite the alerts that have nevertheless arisen at various times, we are entitled to think that several other children are in the same situation, writes the magistrate. However, the living conditions of Inuit children, who have the same right as other young Quebecers to services worthy of the name, should justify giving them all the attention they deserve, attention worthy of the distress in which they find themselves. »
Judge Warolin’s decision was handed down in November 2022, but was not published until Tuesday, after the publication of a first article by The Press. The existence of the judgment had been revealed by the triggering of an appeal process by the lawyers of the DPJ.
“Service Hole”
Judge Warolin heard from several witnesses to try to understand what could have derailed so catastrophically in Anna’s case. The most likely hypothesis: as it was initially an adoption file, it was never transferred to the services of the DPJ responsible for following up on young people in care.
Then, over the years, many red flags were ignored, the judge pointed out. The family has been the subject of several reports and several police interventions without the alarm bell being sounded.
Even from the moment when a worker realized that the young person had fallen into a “10-year service hole” and informed her colleagues, the DPJ was slow to act. The youngster’s arrest for committing a crime eventually forced social services to intervene.
The boss of the local DPJ admitted that she could not explain “the failure to carry out the review of the file”, “the failure to obtain the required court orders” and “the fact that the foster family continued to receive benefits when no services were offered to the child and his family”. As for the removal of biological children from the foster family without Anna being affected, the director indicated that it was common in Nunavik for the DYP to intervene in a house where there were several children, but only with some of them. between them.
Above all, she underlined the glaring lack of personnel from which the Nunavik DYP suffers, in particular because the Inuit are reluctant to accept positions that will force them to intervene in the family affairs of members of their own community.
Judge Warolin noted that the director of youth protection had acknowledged the fault of her organization and had acted with “transparency before the courts”.
The CDPDJ should have been present
Relaunched, the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services did not issue a new comment. In The Press Tuesday, the organization refused to comment on the case, but its boss said she was “personally very sensitive to this kind of situation”. The Régie pointed out the serious social problems afflicting the region, first and foremost the glaring shortage of housing.
Me Cassandra Neptune, Anna’s attorney, did not comment further. On Tuesday, she said she was shocked by her client’s file. “They escaped it solid, she lamented. My client grew up in an environment of violence and drinking, which obviously had an impact on her. »
The participation of the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (CDPDJ) in the hearings “would have been required”, warned Judge Warolin. “If the CDPDJ does not intervene in a situation where a child is forgotten for 14 years, when does it intervene? she wondered.
The Commission “considered that the question of the legal lesion was correctly dealt with there and that all the elements that it could have brought were already taken into account”, indicated the communications coordinator Meissoon Azzaria. ” There [avait] no added value to his presence before the Tribunal. »
* The name of the person has been changed for confidentiality purposes.