What are you left with when the ultimate bulwark of protection that is meant for you crumbles? Reading the pitiless report produced by the Québec Ombudsman for the Public Curator, this is what we are entitled to ask ourselves. The target of many critics for years, the Public Curator, supposed to be the last safety net ensuring the protection of incapacitated people, is not fulfilling its role. Result: the most vulnerable of all the vulnerable are cheated, often without their knowledge, and are without recourse.
The Québec Ombudsman constantly monitors the activities of the Curateur public. The special report Under guardianship, but still vulnerable focuses on the 9,400 incapacitated adults placed under a private protection regime, that is to say that the management of their assets is the responsibility of a guardian – often a relative – who has become their legal representative.
The Québec Ombudsman’s findings are alarming: the Curateur public, responsible for overseeing the management of these private protection plans, does not fulfill its task as it should, which leaves room for financial abuse. He spotted situations of abuse later on; the measures it has taken are insufficient and the processing times far too long. The meshes of the net miss important problems for which these people under curatorship pay the price, because they are often unable to identify the abuses of which they are victims and unable to assert their rights. Remember: if these people are under curatorship, it is because they are among the most vulnerable in society.
The cases presented in the report provoke indignation. A guardian lent $60,000 to a loved one out of the assets of his “protected”, and it took 15 years before the situation was resolved. Another dipped into a $200,000 inheritance to take his family on a trip in 2014, but it wasn’t until 2019 that the guardian was replaced due to “breaches” after squandering $105,000 of the fortune of the one to whom he normally owed benevolence and solicitude. The patrimony of a person under curatorship was used to finance the marriage of a guardian.
The Curator is committed to improving this overwhelming situation with a Action plan to optimize private representation services, in which we find several of the recommendations issued by the Québec Ombudsman. But it will apparently take more resources — the staff is overstretched, while the number of public and private protective schemes is expected to increase over the next twenty years — and positive results to rebuild confidence in this the last chance.
If only it was a first and slight offense! But such is not the case. In his 2020-2021 annual report, the Auditor General of Quebec deplored the fact that the Curateur public was not taking the necessary steps to ensure respect for the rights of the people he represents. Behind this disturbing failure looms a broader bankruptcy of several public services whose mission is to protect citizens. This is a damning finding for a nation that prides itself on doing everything for the benefit of its people.