The Curateur public, which ensures the protection of incapacitated Quebecers, has sometimes been slow to act in situations of financial abuse – supposed or proven – of people placed under private guardianship, notes the Québec Ombudsman in an investigation unveiled Thursday.
In addition, the Public Curator has sometimes “took inadequate measures, carried out insufficient follow-up or demonstrated other omissions”, can we read in the special report Under guardianship, but still vulnerable: protecting the assets of incapacitated adults under private protection.
Currently, nearly 9,400 Quebec adults have a private tutor, that is, a loved one designated to act on their behalf.
The Curateur public very often represents the “last bastion” to preserve the rights of incapacitated persons under private tutorship, noted the Québec Ombudsman, Marc-André Dowd. “Such a crucial mandate cannot be exercised without taking a careful and humane look at the condition of people under protection,” he said in a press release.
The investigation by Mr. Dowd and his team began in 2021. It is based on data collection as well as interviews conducted with the private guardianship monitoring team. After asking the Curateur public to list the files involving financial abuse from October 4, 2017 to April 30, 2021, the Québec Ombudsman carried out a detailed analysis of 36 of the 163 files listed.
“It is clear from the Québec Ombudsman’s investigation that private protection files have escaped the Public Curator’s vigilance in recent years,” the document reads. These breaches may have penalized vulnerable people represented by a private tutor, adds Marc-André Dowd.
The report therefore recommends, among other things, to the Public Curator to act more quickly as soon as an irregular situation is detected and to increase the effectiveness of its means of detecting problematic accounts.
The Québec Ombudsman highlights the improvements and initiatives initiated by the Curateur public to better monitor private tutorships. But there is still a long way to go, he said.
Further details will follow.