New Quebec youth protection director appointed; minister links crisis to immigration

Lesley Hill was appointed director of youth protection on Wednesday, replacing Catherine Lemay, who resigned on Monday in the wake of the sex scandal at the Cité-des-Prairies rehabilitation centre.

Hill is a former commissioner of the Laurent commission, which looked into the state of the youth protection system following the tragic death of a seven-year-old girl in Granby in 2019.

The Legault government has been in turmoil since the media revealed last week that at least nine educators at the Cité-des-Prairies centre in Montreal had allegedly had sexual exchanges with at least five underage residents.

Other cases of sexual misconduct were reported in Laval and Montérégie, according to the daily newspaper La Presse.

On top of this, the Mauricie-Centre-du-Québec DPJ was placed under administration on Oct. 9 for mismanaging the files of children who had been given up for adoption without a full assessment.

Under fire from critics, Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant said on Tuesday during an emergency debate in the National Assembly that he expected his new director to be "more vocal and more present in the public eye."

"The important thing is that we work together, in the same direction, with the same vision, and that we can make sometimes difficult decisions," he added during a press scrum on Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier, the opposition parties welcomed the appointment of Hill, a woman renowned for her outspokenness.

"This person seems to be completely connected," said Marc Tanguay, interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party.

Along with Quebec Solidaire (QS) and the Parti Québécois, he demanded that the roles of director and associate deputy minister be separated.

"I am calling for the law to be amended so that the director of the DPJ is independent, so that she ... has only one loyalty, and that is to the children," said QS MNA Guillaume Cliche-Rivard.

"This raises problems (...) of independence and objectivity," added PQ MNA Joël Arseneau. "It's a blind spot that we're going to have to address quickly."

Carmant echoes Legault by linking crisis to immigration

During question period on Wednesday, Carmant echoed the arguments presented the premier the day before to explain the crisis at the Direction de la protection de la jeunesse (DPJ).

Legault caused consternation among the Liberals and QS by linking the situation to "the explosion in the number of temporary residents."

According to him, many asylum seekers are requesting youth protection services, which is contributing to an "explosion in demand," he said.

Making a link between "aggression against minors in youth centres" and immigration is "outrageous," Liberal MNA Brigitte Garceau said Wednesday.

"The impact of new arrivals is real," insisted Carmant. "There are people who leave South America, the Caribbean, who walk across the United States with their children, who arrive in Quebec, and because of their condition, the DPJ is called in."

"The minster is simply shirking his responsibilities," said Tanguay, who on Tuesday had called for Carmant’s resignation. He has been in charge of social services since 2018.

"He is in his seventh year. It seems that this minister is a bit of a dull boy,” he said, before thundering in the House: "Why is the minister better protected than our young people?"

On Tuesday, Legault said he had "total confidence" in his "friend" Carmant.

"Some people think I'm not interested," said Carmant on Wednesday in the Salon Rouge. "Well, we haven't put on any Band-Aids. We're making far-reaching structural changes to a system that wasn't working before we arrived."

The minister and his new director are due to hold a joint press conference on Thursday to explain how they intend to turn the DPJ around.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 30, 2024.