Quebec’s youth care system is in a state of crisis. This year has seen a record number of children under government protection, with 100, 258 new reports filed—a 114 per cent increase over the past decade. The system is not only overloaded but woefully mismanaged, with countless recent instances of horrific abuse and oversights in the care of children by the government. On Oct. 24, Quebec’s Director of Youth Protection Catherine Lemay stepped down after nine women educators at the Cité-des-Prairies Youth Rehabilitation Centre allegedly sexually abused at least five minors under their care. One of the staff members is allegedly pregnant with the child of one of the youths. Earlier this year, a judge condemned Quebec’s youth services after an Inuk child was placed in 64 different homes before they turned 10, resulting in grave attachment issues and various mental health disorders including PTSD. These problems are just the tip of the iceberg of Quebec’s broken youth care system, and they will persist unless we get to their root: An overreliance on the youth care system, misuse of language, and a shortage of properly trained social workers.
First, it’s critical to understand why government intervention in families is so harmful. Parent-child separation is one of the most profound and lasting traumas a child can experience in their early life. The bond between a child and their primary caregiver is essential for healthy emotional and psychological development. Severing this connection can lead to serious issues such as attachment disorders, anxiety, depression, and difficulties in forming relationships later in life. In an interview with The Tribune, Tonino Esposito, Associate Professor at the University of Montreal’s School of Social Work and Adjunct Professor at McGill, explained how, whenever possible, the goal of government social work should be to address underlying familial issues before they escalate to the point of separation.
“Family reunification is the primary objective the minute that a child is placed in out-of-home care,” Esposito said.
While the harm of separation is well-documented, there are situations where removal may be necessary to protect a child’s immediate safety, such as in cases of abuse or severe neglect. However, whenever possible, the goal should be to support families through early intervention services. These include counselling, parenting support, and community resources to address underlying issues before they escalate to the point of separation. In an interview with The Tribune, one youth currently in care in Quebec shared how, despite being abused by her parents, being separated from them left equally painful scars of abandonment. The separation led her to believe that her parents simply didn’t want her, and that she was unworthy of their love. The system failed her.
Esposito also shared the chilling statistic that people who experience four or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)—such as a guardian struggling with substance abuse or depression, or instabiliy due to parental separation—have a life expectancy 20 years shorter than those who do not. More ACEs are also associated with a 12.2 per cent increase in the likelihood of attempting suicide.
“One in 10 children in the province in Quebec are being intervened, that’s one in 10 kids that have reduced life expectancy of 20 years [...] and these are just the cases we know of,” Dr. Esposito noted.
Keeping children with their families, when safe to do so, preserves emotional stability, family bonds, and cultural ties, ultimately offering the best chance for long-term well-being. Experts agree that child removal should always be considered a last resort.
In a conversation with The Tribune, Dr. Sonia Hélie, a professor at the Université de Montréal, emphasized how highly troublesome cases of separation and abuse are not generalizable to all youth in care. The majority of youth in care, even those in placement, are eventually reunited with their families or live in a single, stable, healthy placement.
“There are approximately 80 per cent of children for whom we intervene quickly for a few months, we close the file and we never see them again,” she explained.
This intervention ensures that children are protected while social workers devise a plan to support parents in creating a safer environment for their children to thrive. However, Hélie explains that there is a minority of children who are not reunited with their families or end up in homes with unsafe conditions and abusive staff. These situations can be fatal.
A look into the 20 per cent: Rare but tragic cases of abuse in the system
“I remember one worker telling me, ‘Maybe your dad is acting the way he’s acting because of you,’” shared one young person currently in care, whose father attempted to take her life. “One time, [workers] locked me in a room for 48 hours.”
These types of experiences are not isolated. For children who have already been through trauma, the environment in many group homes can exacerbate their emotional and psychological struggles. Elijah Olise, a U1 McGill Social Work student and youth advocate, shared one example of a youth home riddled with sexual abuse. He pointed out how instead of finding healing, the trauma is often passed on. system grouped children who had experienced sexual assaults in the same home—being negligent toward the fact that children often reenact their sexual trauma.
“A lot of the time, if you have a young group home and have one kid who was sexually assaulted, they would end up doing things to other kids, or teaching them, or whatever,” he said. “But the thing is that every single kid in that unit was sexually assaulted.”
“They put all the ‘bad apples’ together and whatever happens, happens. They don’t really care about the consequences, ” Olise continued. “They think, ‘Well, at least this is contained.’”
Government actively neglects Indigenous children
From 1876 to 1997, the Canadian government ripped Indigenous children from their homes, tore them away from their families, systematically worked to erase their Indigenous cultures, and subjected them to horrific sexual, physical, and mental abuse—many times, even letting them die in their care. These institutions were residential schools. But Indigenous children are still being taken from their families, still being separated from their communities, and still suffering trauma—only now, it happens under the guise of child protection. While we might instinctively draw a line between the residential schools of the past and the child welfare system today, the numbers and reports from a study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health show that these systems share more similarities than differences.
Of Indigenous communities, First Nations children specifically are over 17 times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be removed from their families and placed in care. Even in cases where no maltreatment or behavioural issues are reported, First Nations children are almost five times more likely to be investigated, particularly when concerns about neglect are raised. In Canada as a whole, statistics show that while Indigenous children make up just over 7 per cent of the Canadian child population, they represent more than 50 per cent of children in the child welfare system.
“It’s a very colonial way of childcare, a continuation, directly speaking, of the residential schools,” Olise says. “Foster homes are not any different––they're just packaged differently.”
The children and grandchildren of residential school survivors face increased risks for negative health outcomes through several pathways. Beyond the direct trauma linked to residential school attendance, these negative effects are also tied to intergenerational challenges such as discrimination in public services and mental health struggles. Of First Nations youth aged 12-24 who live off reserves, 43 per cent reported heavy drinking. The high rates of parent-child separation within Indigenous communities perpetuate this trauma, and many Indigenous youth advocates argue that this is closely tied to historical colonial interventions that supported and perpetuated child removal practices across generations.
During an interview with The Tribune, Nico Trocmé, Director of McGill’s School of Social Work, explained that while shifts in Canadian government policies during the late 20th century helped reduce the number of children removed from families, this improvement actively excluded First Nations families.
“The number of children in care across Canada, by the end of the 80s, had been cut in half,” he said. “The one exception was First Nations families and children because the federal government essentially refused to fund family support services for them.”
In fact, in 2007, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and the Assembly of First Nations filed a complaint under the Canadian Human Rights Act, alleging that the Canadian government discriminated against Indigenous families in child welfare services through underfunding. For years, the case was subject to high scrutiny. In 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) ruled that the Canadian government was depriving First Nations children of the same resources that other children in the welfare system received. However, for 15 months the CHRT took this decision under reserve, during which time the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)—which led reconciliation efforts for any Indigenous person affected by the colonial legacies of the residential school system—released their final report. In their final report, the TRC listed 94 direct calls to action to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Child welfare equity and reform was number one on this list.
Caseworkers’ willful disregard for the very children they should protect
Even more troubling than the systemic overrepresentation of Indigenous children is how some caseworkers in Quebec’s youth protection system often fail to meet basic standards of accountability. Internal documents obtained by La Presse revealed disturbing trends in one centre: Caseworkers at the centre routinely, and knowingly, submitted reports to the courts containing significant errors, and in some instances, they requested no-contact orders between children and their parents without providing sufficient justification. In the sample analyzed in the report, over half of the children placed in foster care were removed from their homes without meeting the required legal or procedural standards for removal. The same horrifying report showed that many children were placed for adoption without all the necessary legal criteria being met.
In one case, the investigator highlights a new mother who had been placed in foster care by the Direction de la Protection de la Jeunesse (DPJ) during her own childhood and aged out of the system. Because of her history with the DPJ, a report was filed just a day after her baby was born. Within two days of being born, the baby was placed under immediate protection measures.
What’s behind the disturbing cases of abuse?
1. The Overuse and Misuse of Child Protection Terminology
A significant issue contributing to the breakdown of the system is the way the terms abuse and neglect are applied.
“The language of child abuse and neglect is being stretched way too broadly,” Trocmé said. “Some of the day-to-day crises that any family can face. If you are living in poverty and you don’t have access to other resources, then people misuse terms like neglect or even abuse to describe these situations.”
This overgeneralization leads to families being swept into a system that was not designed to address their real needs. Of course, this is not to undermine actual cases of abuse and neglect. However, in day-to-day family crises that do not involve abuse or neglect, families are often thrust into an investigative process, instead of receiving the support they require—such as parenting resources, community services, or mental health care.
“For the majority of these families, they’re being served by the child protection system not because of acts of commission, but primarily because of chronic needs associated with an array of problems under this broad nomenclature of ‘neglect,’” Esposito said.
The child protection system is supposed to be a last-resort intervention for exceptional cases of abuse or neglect, but too often, it becomes an overused tool for more common struggles.
“One in every 10 kids in the province of Quebec will be intervened by the child protection system before they turn 18. So by no stretch of the imagination is that an exceptional intervention,” Esposito said.
2. The Impact of Underfunding and Staff Shortages
Another major factor driving the crisis is the severe lack of resources in youth protection systems.
“They’re so desperate to get workers that some of these workers aren’t even qualified anymore. But if you fire too many, then you have no system,” Olise noted.
This shortage of qualified professionals exacerbates the issues facing children in care and the social workers tasked with protecting them. Social workers are overwhelmed, and in some cases, turnover is so high that the system becomes unstable. The situation is even worse in First Nations communities.
“It’s a bit of a double whammy: The federal funding system simply didn’t fund family support services, and the provinces never really developed those services tailored to the needs of [First Nations] communities,” Trocmé said.
3. Structural Failures and Centralization of Services
Quebec’s previous Liberal government decided to centralize health and social services, integrating many community-based social service agencies into larger healthcare systems. This centralization has made accountability difficult. Previously, a local director would oversee daily operations at group homes and be held accountable for the care provided.
“Now, the person who’s responsible for a group home might also be responsible for a major teaching hospital, all services for the elderly, and people with disabilities. That structural change was very problematic in Quebec,” Trocmé explained.
Another critical issue is the level of training and support for social workers. Hélie points out that many social workers lack foundational training in the legal aspects of child intervention, while the lawyers and judges lack an understanding of child development, attachment theory, and trauma-sensitive approaches, which are essential when dealing with vulnerable children and families. Social work is an inherently interdisciplinary field, and the lack of adequate training and specialized knowledge has led to missteps in practice.
Not all hope is lost
To be clear, the majority of social workers aren’t the villains in this story; they are the heroes. They work tirelessly, often under impossible conditions, doing their best to support children and families who need help the most. These professionals are navigating a deeply flawed, underfunded, and overstretched system—one that often leaves them with few options, no matter how hard they work.
But my deepest empathy is reserved for the children—the ones whose voices are so often drowned out in the noise of bureaucracy and policy. The numbers may be overwhelming, and the problems deeply rooted in policy and structure, but at the heart of it all are children who never asked to be part of this broken system. And in the end, it’s their voices that must be heard the loudest.
This crisis may seem insurmountable, but it can be overcome. The solution lies not in sweeping reform alone, but in our collective commitment to putting children and their futures first. It’s about understanding that youth protection isn’t just a system for the few—it’s a service for the many, and when it fails, it affects us all. We all have a role to play—whether it's by advocating for policy change, supporting organizations working on the ground, or simply amplifying the voices of those who are too often ignored.
A lack of attentiveness is what allows adults to harm children in the ways they have. To make matters worse, we only know of the investigations that have been publicized. We must have a commitment to preserving children’s joy and innocence. For McGill students, as you graduate and step into your careers, you will inevitably cross paths with children—whether through the legal system, counselling, teaching, or beyond. For better or for worse, your actions will shape their futures. When that moment comes, don’t look away.