Protection of children | No real watchdog, denounce industry players

The Commission on Human Rights and Youth Rights (CDPDJ) is not doing its job as a watchdog to protect children, denounce youth protection lawyers and former employees of the Commission.

In the hot seat for months, the organization defends itself by asserting that its mission is simply “misunderstood”. “We are ensuring that legal injuries stop and that corrective measures are made,” says the Commission’s vice-president for youth mandates, Suzanne Arpin, who indicates that she settled 463 cases last year.

“The CDPDJ is not playing its role even though the legislator has given it all the necessary powers,” believes a former director of investigations for the youth sector of the organization, Jean Théorêt. Now retired, the man is very critical of what the institution has become.

“The children of the DPJ are the most vulnerable and they are not adequately protected,” adds youth law lawyer Valérie Assouline. With numerous supporting examples, she and colleagues believe that the CDPDJ closes investigations where the rights of children have clearly been violated.

This was particularly the case for Jade, 17 years old, whom M^e Assouline represents. For six years, Jade was sexually abused by her foster father. The Press told his story Wednesday. Like dozens of other young people, she was placed by the DPJ in this house where a teenager had reported sexual abuse in 2004, but had not been believed.

Read “DPJ host family: the house of horrors”

The CDPDJ opened an investigation, which lasted 15 days. In January, Jade received a letter from the organization’s Youth Investigation Department. “There is no reason to believe that your rights have been infringed,” the missive said. For the teenager, these words had the effect of a stab.

“We have reviewed the documentation and spoken with certain parties in the file,” the letter said. Our investigation allows us to determine that adequate checks were carried out by the DPJ before you were accommodated by your former host family. »

M^e Assouline particularly deplores the fact that the investigator did not call Jade or the victim who reported the attacks in 2004.

According to Suzanne Arpin, the CDPDJ was informed of this story in November. She explains that “many people believe that the Commission has superpowers and that creates expectations that we cannot fulfill.” She specifies that her organization “has the mandate to verify whether organizations violate rights based on the Youth Protection Act » and if so, to ensure that measures are taken to stop it.

Lack of evidence

The CDPDJ does not have the mandate to conduct police investigations or distribute blame, insists M^me Arpin, who specifies that “we can arrive at the fact that there was no violation of rights, but that does not mean that there were not other breaches”.

Out of 2,400 requests for intervention in youth matters received between January 2018 and December 2023 by the CDPDJ, 831 were closed for lack of proof of violation of rights, according to a request for access to information made by the lawyer in youth law Mylène Leblanc.

Accommodated in a youth center for two years, Ève (fictitious first name) was attacked there by another young person. The 11-year-old was locked in a jail cell during a seizure. And she was injured by being placed in an isolation room in a hotel in the Laurentians transformed into a youth rehabilitation center due to lack of places. His story was presented by The Press last October.

Read “The volcano child and the flaws of the DPJ”

In January, after eight months of investigation, the CDPDJ considered that Eve’s rights had not been violated. The conclusions of the CDPDJ, first reported in the daily The sun, indicate in particular “that a child should not be transported to a police station”. But because the DPJ sent a “memo” dictating the conduct to adopt in the future, the CDPDJ “puts an end to [son] intervention” and closes the file.

This decision made Eve’s mother jump. For her, everything suggests that at the DPJ, “you just have to make your mea culpa and thus, the problem disappears”.

Absent from court

The CDPDJ has the power to intervene directly in court to defend children whose rights have been violated, but it very rarely does so, says former director of investigations Jean Théorêt.

M^e Mylène Leblanc estimates that she has asked the CDPDJ to come and support children before the court in around twenty cases over the past three years. In 2022, the Commission appeared in court in the case of eight children. The impact of her intervention was “immediate” on respect for the rights of these young people, according to the lawyer. But suddenly, at the heart of its appeals, the CDPDJ withdrew from these cases. Since then, M^e Leblanc says he has not seen the Commission again in youth court, even if she continues to question them.

These testimonies overlap with those heard in recent months as part of the study of Bill 37, which seeks to establish a new Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Quebec. In a parliamentary committee, Nancy Audet, author of two books on youth protection services, denounced the fact that the CDPDJ was “absent from the field”.

She pleads for the youth protection aspect to be entrusted to the future Commissioner for Children’s Rights, as recommended by the Laurent commission. The minister responsible for Social Services, Lionel Carmant, believes instead that the commission must retain its youth mandate.

Four former employees and a former executive of the Commission described to The Press the “passivity” and “inaction” of the institution. Children have little or no knowledge of the laws that protect them, they argue. However, the CDPDJ practically never meets children in rehabilitation centers and group homes, they testify.

“In certain cases where it would have been relevant, I wanted to go meet young people in their living environment or simply observe the state of the rehabilitation center where the rights of a young person were possibly infringed, but that has always was a big no,” says a former employee who left the institution, disillusioned.

M^me Arpin recognizes that the Commission rarely visits youth centers, in particular because access is “complex”. But she says that the promotion of children’s rights goes through “partner organizations”, such as youth centers. Teachers and educators are also trained.

A misunderstood mission

In a press release published on April 6, the president of the CDPDJ, Philippe-André Tessier, attributed the criticism directed towards his organization to “confusion regarding the mandate that the Youth Protection Act (LPJ) attributes to him.”

He defended his lack of presence in court by the fact that “judicialization should not be the first response to the needs to protect the rights of children”. In a recent interview with The Press, Mr. Tessier also said that the role of the CDPDJ is not to be the child’s attorney, but to act “in the interests of the child”. “We intervene on questions of interpretation of the law, we are not there for individual cases,” he said.

Read “The CDPDJ defends its work”

In his press release, the president indicates that the CDPDJ does not hesitate to go to court when necessary in systemic cases.

In 2022-2023, “98% of all investigations for which we noted an infringement of rights were resolved during the investigation,” we read in Mr. Tessier’s press release, that is to say that the party in question has taken satisfactory corrective measures.”

The president of the CDPDJ cited as an example the case of a youth center in Mauricie where adolescents “were housed in a temporary overflow unit” where the rooms “were in fact small spaces separated by curtains or screens and their Personal belongings were in plastic boxes. After the CDPDJ visit, “the temporary unit was dismantled,” says Mr. Tessier, who sees it as a success story. Considering that the situation had been corrected, the Commission closed the file.

Two years later, the makeshift facilities were back in Mauricie, as evidenced by a judgment from the Court of Quebec which concluded that the rights of a teenager who spent 11 days in the “overpopulation unit” were violated. . As in 2022, his room was made of cardboard-plastic walls held together with adhesive tape. The door was made of a shower curtain.

M^me Arpin mentions that, a bit like a court that does not follow up on its orders, the CDPDJ does not directly follow up on the measures. But when a situation repeats itself, as in the case of Mauricie which came to the attention of the CDPDJ through the media, “we are going to go a little further to bring about more structuring correctives”, assures us. She.