Quebec judge awards $25K to Inuk woman 'forgotten' by youth protection authorities
CBC
In a legal first, a Quebec Court judge has awarded cash compensation of $25,000 to a 19-year-old Inuk woman who was forgotten by the youth protection (DPJ) officials responsible for her care for nearly 15 years.
In the judgment, rendered last November but only made public this week, Judge Peggy Warolin acknowledged there's no legal precedent for her decision.
"The court concludes that this financial compensation, although imperfect, is the only possible option to correct the injury situation experienced by this teenager for so many years," Warolin said.
The young woman, who can't be identified under child protection laws, was born in 2004 and placed in a foster family in 2006 in a village on Hudson Bay. She stayed with that foster family until 2018.
While the judge found that the foster family provided some adequate care during that time, there were instances of substance abuse and domestic violence.
Despite that, for a period of 10 years, from 2006 to 2016, nobody from the DPJ bothered to check on the girl.
The DPJ only became aware of the girl again after being alerted to behavioural problems she was having at school.
And the judge found that even once social workers resumed contact, they spent five more years bungling or ignoring the case.
"What term can be strong enough to qualify the total absence of followup during all these years?" Warolin said.
"Her situation was completely forgotten and no one cared about her well-being or legal status," she added.
The judgment found that youth protection workers missed a key opportunity to intervene early in the case.
In 2007, police warned the DPJ about the foster father in the home where the girl was living.
Police noted that the father had been imprisoned several times, had several pending criminal files, and that the foster mother was a "regular victim" of domestic violence.
They also noted the foster father had been charged in the past with sexual assault of minors, but it was unclear whether he had been convicted.
This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weekly analysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.
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