These reports have been discussed since the start of the inquest led by coroner Géhane Kamel. We are talking here about inspection reports (form containing 17 questions) completed during 678 visits to CHSLDs which are, it seems, very difficult to find. According to Me Patrick Martin-Ménard, who represents the families of seniors who died in CHSLDs during the first wave, these documents will shed light on what really happened in these establishments.
The case was also raised some time ago by Ariane Lacoursière, from Press, and Michel David, from To have to. Thomas Gerbet, of Radio-Canada, also commented and documented this file very well after learning that, in the end, all the information may not have been destroyed.
But what a story! History which is widely repeated in the National Assembly and which places the government in a very bad position.
The archivist that I am was very surprised when the Deputy Minister of Health and Social Services (MSSS), Natalie Rosebush, who was responding to Coroner Kamel, affirmed that the “inspection reports” of CHSLDs carried out during the first wave of the pandemic had not been preserved. Clearly, these documents would have been destroyed. We later learned that this may not have been the case. And now the file lands in the field of MSSS archives management and an archival question arises, that of the application of the fundamental tool that is the “conservation calendar”. Indeed, under article 7 of the Archives Act, the retention schedule is defined as follows: “Any public body [le MSSS est un organisme public] must establish and keep up to date a retention schedule determining the periods of use and the storage medium for its documents […]. “
These decisions are embodied more precisely in a “conservation rule” that the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) defines as being an “Agreement established from the administrative, legal, historical and research evaluation of a documentary series. , an information system, a file (or a document, if applicable) and which establishes the periods of use and the method of disposal ”. In the circumstances, the following questions should therefore be asked of whom it may concern:
1. What about the application of the Archives Act to the MSSS?
2. Does the MSSS apply a retention schedule? (I assume the answer is definitely yes.)
3.In this case, what retention rule applies to inspection reports?
4. Has the retention period provided for in this retention rule for this type of document actually been applied?
The person responsible for applying the retention schedule at the MSSS must necessarily be able to answer these questions.
We understand that the answers to these questions are of capital importance in the context of the inquest led by Coroner Kamel. If it was found that the “inspection reports” were indeed kept under the retention rule that applies to them, then they must exist somewhere. And, in the midst of a pandemic, it seems to us that, in any case, the greatest caution was needed as regards the conservation of documents that we should have qualified as essential for the future. Anyway, the archivist that I am is astonished and worried about all this hubbub around documents which are worth their weight in gold for the investigations being carried out now and for the other investigations which will perhaps follow, astonishment and concern, moreover, shared by Mr.e Kamer, Me Ménard and the representatives of all the opposition parties in the National Assembly.