Duplessis Orphans – Victims of Abuse in Quebec Suing Catholic Church and Quebec Government

Late last month, a motion to receive approval for a multi-million dollar class action suit against the Quebec government and the Catholic Church was filed in the courts of Quebec.  The plaintiffs are to be an elderly band of survivors of what is called “the Duplessis orphans.”

We generally like to link to news stories for attribution.  However, this story received no mention in press outside of Quebec and only a little there if Google News is to believed.  So you can be excused if you haven’t heard of the Duplessis Orphans or this story.

Unlike the outrage we feel over well-publicized tragedies like the First Nation victims of church-run residential schools or the victims of CIA-mind control experiments in Montreal or the victims of sexual abuse by priests within the Catholic church, the story of the Duplessis orphans hasn’t gained such fire inside or outside of Quebec despite decades of controversy. This is perhaps because it is a true French-Canadian tragedy that was shaped by the politics and religious climate of 1940s & 50s in Quebec where Le Chef was boss and his right-hand was the church with the most loyal following in North America.  Even the CBC in its precis on the fate of the orphans neglects to mention the role of the Catholic church.

So it appears everyone would like to forget it, except the victims can’t.

The Duplessis Orphans came about because they are a class of people that the Quebec government and its society of the day were too embarrassed to acknowledge even existed – the children of single parents who were orphaned.  Orphaned?  Of course, those who remember back to the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s remember that to be “born out of wedlock” was an incalculable sin and a stain on a family.  Better to hide the bastard children somewhere than been seen flouting societal norms especially in Quebec of the day.

Where were they hidden?  So-called sanctuaries run by the church.  Some 20,000 children.  But that is not all.

They weren’t just hidden.  They were falsely diagnosed as mentally ill and treated as mental patients so the Quebec government could rake in health grant money from the federal government and pay the church because these sanctuaries were now deemed psychiatric institutions.

Needless to say, the young children’s vicissitudes and abuse were many and there have been many failed attempts to get acknowledgments of the crimes against humanity by the groups responsible and some kind of decent compensation.   The Canadian Encyclopedia does somewhat of a job on this issue.  We thank the Underground Knowlege YouTube channel for the photo above and recommend their short 4-minute video for a quick history of the controversy surrounding the fate of the Orphans.

Many if not most are now dead.  Just like the woman who suffered at the hands of Montreal mind-control madman Ewen Cameron in the 1960s, it wasn’t until after her death and recently that her daughter received any compensation from the Canadian government. This seems to be the fate of the remaining orphans.

We have uploaded the Orphan’s statement of claim and you read it and download it here.