Quebec to create Children’s Rights Commissioner, tables Bill 37

QUÉBEC – On Thursday, Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant tabled Bill 37 to create the position of Commissioner for Children’s Welfare and Rights.

This was in response to the key recommendation of the Laurent Commission, which was tasked in 2019 with examining children’s rights and youth protection following the death of a seven-year-old girl in Granby.

“What we need, what we really want is for somebody where the youth can reach out to, and that would be the [commissioner],” explained Carmant. “So if let’s say, I don’t believe my rights are being properly taken care of, I want them to call the commissar. And that’s really the new point that we’re bringing to this number of individuals that take care of our well-being…and the [commissioner] will decide who needs to go, where to bring the child to get the proper help”

Commission president Régine Laurent, who was present in the Salon bleu on Thursday at the National Assembly, shed a few tears of joy when the bill was tabled.

Later, in a press scrum with Premier François Legault and Minister Carmant, Laurent declared that children, who have rights, don’t know them.

“Just because you’re under 18 doesn’t mean you don’t have rights. This commissioner will be obliged to promote (rights) not only to young people, but to parents and the population as a whole,” she said.

“If we take the case from Granby, and most of the strategies that we live are actually due to lack of communication, and I think the [commissioner] can help children and families in using the proper tools to take care of these complex cases,” added Carmant.

“We want the [commissioner] to bring the person to the proper individual to intervene if there’s a need to intervene. And the challenge for us will be to see how the [commissioner] interacts with other, we mentioned protectors de citoyens, protectors de l’élève, so we need to test, I think that’s going to be the fine tuning that we’ll be doing during the [parliamentary] commission.”

If Bill 37 is adopted, a commissioner will be appointed by a two-thirds majority of the National Assembly. Among other things, he or she will be responsible for analyzing the state of children’s well-being in Quebec and producing an annual portrait of this state.

“There is a number of processes that need to be, that we want to improve, which are interministerial or intersectorial, you know, adult life after youth protection. there’s a number of these more complex and interactive processes that we need to build in for the phase two,” said Carmant.

The government will also create a commissioner position specifically for children from Indigenous communities.

“Because of their high representation in youth protection, and to make sure that there is somebody also that is listening to the voice of children from First Nations and Inuit [communities].”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 26, 2023, and translated by CityNews.