The Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) must be credited for having taken an important legal step to ensure that elder abuse is punished, thereby reducing our sad record of elder abuse. But now comes the time for the balance sheets: it seems that even if the law has teeth, no one knows exactly who should bite.
As a report by our journalist Stéphanie Vallet revealed on Tuesday, the Act to combat mistreatment of older adults and any other person of full age in a vulnerable situation has had an additional mechanism since the spring that allows the imposition of fines of up to $250,000 not only to the perpetrators of an act of mistreatment, but also to those who do not respect their obligation to report it. On paper, this game plan is serious and intended to discourage bad practices. But in fact, a major procedural defect renders the law inoperative: the process linking the complaint to the offense is not clear, to the point where neither the police, nor the families, nor the complaints commissioners know how to punish the culprits. Big deal !
The flaw is certainly not irrecoverable, but it must be admitted that it adds a slight veneer of unease to an already shameful situation, Quebec still bearing the indelible stain of carnage in CHSLDs during the first tempo of the pandemic. This episode, along with countless chapters of shameless neglect in seniors’ residences, has made Quebec a society where one wonders if it is good to grow old.
Elders who believe that they are being treated inappropriately find themselves in aberrant situations where they do not know where to turn to get their complaint resolved, sometimes for more than a year. The police services believe that it is not their responsibility. The Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions has never dealt with this type of offense and understands that clarifications must come from the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS). Relatives of CHSLD residents who consider themselves victims of abuse are enraged to know that there is a law, but “nobody to apply it”.
This situation must be corrected quickly and favor a totally independent investigation process, which in all likelihood cannot involve only the MSSS, because it is a stakeholder. That too is a question of respect for elders.
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