Newly appointed youth protection head Lesley Hill promises greater transparency

Quebec Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant, right, walks to a news conference with Lesley Hill, the new national director of youth protection, DPJ, Thursday, October 31, 2024 at the legislature in Quebec City. (Jacques Boissinot / The Canadian Press)

Newly appointed Quebec youth protection (DPJ) director Lesley Hill appeared before journalists on Thursday, promising greater transparency.

"We're going to have to shine a big light on our house, in all the closets, in all the rooms of the house, and we risk finding cobwebs, and we're going to have to clean them," she said.

Hill was at a press conference alongside Quebec Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant, who has been in turmoil since the media revealed a series of scandals at the DPJ.

The many controversies also led to the resignation of Hill's predecessor, Catherine Lemay, last Monday.

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.

On Thursday, she promised to be a “watchdog” for Quebec’s children.

“I have nothing to lose,” she said, explaining that she came out of retirement to accept the position. “It’s a bit brave of the government to put a woman like me in a position like that, because I’m bound to be vocal.”

“I won’t hold back from saying what I have to say,” she added.

Like all Quebecers, she “fell off her chair” at the scale of the problems at the DPJ.

She points out that employees in the network are required by law to report unacceptable situations.

"As of next week, I'm sending a directive,” she said. “We want people to talk about intolerable situations. I'm going to talk to the Quebec Ombudsman as soon as possible because we need to protect people who sound the alarm."

Last week, media reports revealed that educators allegedly had sexual intercourse with young residents of the Cité-des-Prairies rehabilitation centre in Montreal.

Other cases of sexual misconduct allegedly occurred in Laval and the Montérégie, according to the print publication La Presse.

The DPJ Mauricie—Centre-du-Québec was also placed under guardianship following revelations about children who were placed too quickly in the mixed bank to be adopted.

The Estrie DPJ also allegedly wanted to separate two-year-old triplets to have them adopted, even though their biological mother was able to take care of them, again according to La Presse.

Faced with an accumulation of controversies, Quebec Solidaire (QS) said on Thursday that it had no choice but to follow in the footsteps of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) in demanding Carmant's resignation.

"Mr. Carmant did not demonstrate the necessary urgency this week. I did not feel he was shaken enough," lamented QS MNA Guillaume Cliche-Rivard in a news scrum at the National Assembly.

He pointed out that Carmant also dismissed, on Wednesday, a request from the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (CDPDJ) to relocate young people from the Mont-Saint-Antoine centre due to unsanitary conditions.

The PLQ had already called for Carmant's resignation on Tuesday, though Premier François Legault responded that he had "total confidence" in his "friend."

-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 31, 2024.