“You like that, my tabarnak, breaking up families. »
Leaving the courtroom, the burly man, with a scarlet face, rushes towards Isabelle*, shouting insults.
The colossus’ youngest daughter must be placed in a rehabilitation center, a judge has just ruled.
Since “day 1”, the DPJ worker has been afraid of this father addicted to crack “with a criminal record as long as his arm”.
“Every time I spoke to him on the phone, he yelled at me. »
Three special constables, one of whom had his hand on his service weapon, managed to stop him just before he reached the speaker.
Once she returned home, the experienced worker who works in the Greater Montreal area vomited all night.
For weeks, she “sees him everywhere”. The fact that he lives close to her home amplifies her distrust. “I felt like he was following me. I never took the same route,” she describes.
Despite the seriousness of the event, Isabelle did not file a report to report it. Overwhelmed with cases due to staff shortages, she prioritizes children.
If I had to fill this out every time I experience violence, I would no longer have time to make my case follow-up notes.
Isabelle, DPJ worker
The Press collected around fifteen testimonies from DPJ workers and youth center educators who were victims of physical and psychological violence in the course of their work. They all speak of a “black number” of violent events since they only report the most serious ones. And even.
They all say that the situation has deteriorated since tragedies like those in Wendake and Granby. These two tragedies in which the DPJ was singled out are often brandished out of context by furious parents.
There is no longer any respect for the institution or its workers, deplore speakers from the four corners of Quebec. “No matter what we do, whether we do too much or not enough, among the population, we come across as monsters,” sums up one of them.
“We already had trouble going to people’s homes before,” explains Justine, a worker in a region where a tragedy has taken place in recent years. But there, it reached a much higher level of violence, and it never came down. Violence is trivialized, and our tolerance is increasing. »
” I’m going to kill you “
But this violence, which has escalated, is not limited to the regions affected by recent tragedies, our survey shows. The workers who work with parents with consumption and mental health issues say they experience “psychological violence, threats, an intimidating climate” “on a daily basis”.
“Being called a big motherfucker, always sexualized insults, is commonplace,” explains Marie, an experienced specialized educator who works in a youth center in Greater Montreal. The threat that hurts the most? “I’m going to find your children. »
Over time, Mary built herself a shield. When a young person says to her: “I’m going to kill you, my tabarnak, I’m going to put you on the ground, you’re going to be on all fours in front of me,” she doesn’t even react anymore. She blames this anger on her discomfort.
But if you attack my family, it bothers me, because my family doesn’t have that shield.
Marie, specialized educator
Marie has lost count of the number of colleagues who have left the DPJ in recent years, often transferred to risk-free positions at the CLSC, in particular. Like this young educator harassed every day by a young pimp.
“I would be able to sell you. » “I can make you $1200 easy.” » The same refrain day after day for months. The young woman ended up filing a complaint for threats, intimidation and harassment. “When the youth entered the courtroom, he stared at her; if he had had knives in his eyes, she would no longer be here,” says the educator. His young colleague is now on sick leave.
“As if it was part of the job”
The police too often trivialize the violence to which DPJ employees are victims, “as if it were part of the job,” several experienced workers told us.
“The understanding of the police is sometimes more hurtful than the threats or attacks from parents,” says a worker who has worked for 15 years on the application of measures. We are told in different ways that it is normal for us to experience threats or harassment in the context of our work. »
Often the police downplay their request. “When I call and say it’s going to take two police cars, they don’t believe me,” describes Justine, who has nine years of experience.
“I often walk past your house with my baseball bat,” Nathalie, an experienced counselor, was told by an angry father. The day she told him that her son would be taken away from her, this man exploded, to the point that she had to call the police. To calm him down, the police took him outside to smoke a cigarette, while she remained inside, near the window.
The father then mimed a gun with his fingers while pointing at her. Then he pretended to pull the trigger. She filed a complaint. However, the police told him that the father could have targeted the building; and not her necessarily.
The police didn’t even take the complaint. I was angry. If he had made the same gesture in front of police officers at a police station, it is certain that he would have been arrested.
Nathalie, DPJ worker
The clientele has increased, observe several speakers: no more “bad drugs” and mental health problems.
“When we arrive at people’s homes, we don’t have bulletproof vests or electric guns,” observes Justine. We arrive in a crackhouse with a father who is losing his temper. We’re all alone. We don’t have a safety net. » Some police officers are sometimes stunned, describes another speaker, Rachelle. “We go in the same environments as you, and there are two of us, we have a gun and a bulletproof vest,” they tell them.
Greeted with a shotgun
Several workers who work in the region described their fear to us, heightened by the fact that many parents have firearms at home.
Nathalie, who works in Mauricie, recounts with emotion how a father with a violent history began to terrorize her and her team during each of their interventions. During a home visit, the man greeted two of his colleagues with a 12-gauge shotgun in hand. He didn’t go any further but in the following meetings, he liked to repeat that the speakers like them were “crows” and that “with his 12, he really liked that, shooting crows”. Another time, the man pretended to ram his truck at them, veering off course just in time.
Another, Geneviève, who works in a “hunter” region, now carries an alarm button during her home visits.
The police were clear: it must be assumed that customers have weapons. And we are there with our notebook and our pencil!
Geneviève, DPJ worker
For certain home visits, Geneviève communicates her position to a colleague, insisting: “If I haven’t called you in 20 minutes, call the police. » Since then, she has equipped her home with surveillance cameras, bars on the windows and an alarm system.
This worker often advises her abused clients to associate an “information location” with their 911 number. “At that time, without any questions asked on the phone, the police officers move very quickly to the scene,” explains -she. Since last spring, because of a client who made threats, she herself has used this tool.
Several workers who live in different regions, including Nathalie, have already found their car tires punctured at the end of a day of work. In Longueuil, a year ago, all the cars were vandalized. “We had a security guard for three days. No additional security measures have been added since,” criticizes a worker from this office.
And since the workers often work in small settings, it is practically impossible to keep their personal information confidential. “It happened to me to have furniture delivered to me and it was one of my customers who delivered my bedroom set,” adds Nathalie.
“I now know your address, your phone number and your tank plate,” he told her. Nathalie filed a complaint once again. “Again, the police could not do anything. »
Bullying can go a long way. A Molotov cocktail thrown in the offices of the Montreal DPJ on Boulevard De Maisonneuve Est in the summer of 2022 was indeed the work of a father furious at having lost custody of his children, according to our information. The authorities of the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal told us that they had never obtained confirmation of this fact from the police. A suspect was arrested, but not charged due to lack of sufficient evidence.
Sébastien Pitre is treasurer of the Alliance of Professional and Technical Personnel in Health and Social Services (APTS), the union which brings together many DPJ stakeholders. He himself worked in a rehabilitation center for 17 years. During these years, he witnessed harassment, vandalism and threats.
“Every time I told myself we had reached rock bottom, eventually it got worse. »
* Fictitious first name to protect anonymity