The Minister responsible for Social Services, Lionel Carmant, is evaluating the possibility of giving youth protection workers a job title distinct from the rest of social workers in the Quebec network, which would allow him to offer them different salaries.
“We are not there yet, but it is something that we are studying,” said the elected representative of the Coalition Avenir Québec to the parliamentary press on Tuesday afternoon, in reaction to the complaints of speakers in youth protection reported this morning in the pages of Duty.
They criticize Minister Carmant for going too far last fall by promising “significant” income increases to employees of the Directorate of Youth Protection (DPJ). These increases will be made through bonuses which are not reflected in the retirement plan and which are too little different, according to them, from the sums offered to social workers outside the DPJ. “Is this going to be enough to prevent the exodus or slow down the exodus? I think that asking the question is answering it,” said one speaker, Isabelle C. Morin.
In 2021, the Laurent commission on children’s rights and youth protection recommended the creation of a specific job title for DPJ workers. Approached in the minutes preceding question period in the National Assembly on Tuesday, Minister Carmant made it clear that implementing this proposal was “not as simple as that”.
“But clearly, there is specific training that we want to provide. It’s in the third phase,” said Mr. Carmant. The elected official is currently in the second phase of his network reform, initiated in 2021 with the tabling of Bill 15 “modifying the Youth Protection Act and other legislative provisions”.
Without a specific title, youth protection workers, who have social worker training, have the same salary status as their colleagues outside the DYP. Even if they carry out, by the minister’s own admission, “work which is difficult, which requires understanding a law” and “which is psychologically heavier, too”.
“For a question of fairness, the government cannot give different salaries to employees who exercise the same profession,” wrote Minister Carmant’s office to Duty Monday.
$20,000 increase
In a press scrum on Tuesday, Mr. Carmant defended himself from having promised too much to social workers in September when he affirmed in front of an audience of DPJ employees that there “really needed to be a more significant difference between those who work at the CLSC, in other programs, and those who work in youth protection.”
“I think that $20,000 is significant,” he said, referring to the maximum increase in annual income that DPJ employees will be able to receive when their new collective agreement comes into force.
The establishment of a 10% bonus for all those who work in youth centers or evaluating reports has the advantage of applying to all those involved in youth protection, observed Mr. Carmant . “This is a significant gain,” he repeated.
Like the rest of their Common Front colleagues, DPJ stakeholders will be able to fully see the results of the negotiations when their collective agreement comes into force — “in the coming weeks,” hopes the president of the Alliance of Professional and Technical Personnel of health and social services, Robert Comeau.
“He didn’t deliver.”
The Parti Québécois spokesperson for social services, Joël Arseneau, accuses Minister Carmant of “not [avoir] delivered” after his remarks in the fall.
“We can imagine the disappointment, but above all the demobilization that this risks causing among those involved in the DPJ. In the current operating conditions, we can anticipate that the exodus of workers is likely to continue, which is of course dramatic for the network and the children waiting for services, support and support,” a- he affirmed in a written declaration sent to the Duty.
Liberal MP Brigitte Garceau, for her part, encouraged the minister to seriously study the addition of a DYP speaker title. “There remain questions about the concrete actions he took to avoid the exodus of staff,” she said.
The solidarity MP for Sherbrooke, Christine Labrie, is also concerned that the agreements signed this winter will not have the expected effects. “Youth center workers need to have their professional autonomy respected and provided with the conditions to really help young people, not just monitor them. This is what it takes to keep them within the DPJ,” she argued..