A black anglophone mom is going public to speak against the Quebec Human Rights Commission's alleged mishandling of a complaint she filed.
The story dates back to 2010, when the mother — a youth case worker at Batshaw Youth and Family Services — and her then 7-year-old son were referred to the Centre Jeunesse de Montreal after experiencing domestic violence.
She says while she was at CJM, she had trouble getting service from staff, or proper documentation in English, despite a policy guaranteeing bilingual services.
She filed a race, gender and language complaint with the Human Rights Commission, which was eventually dismissed after four years — in part, because the Commission reasoned the lack of English services didn't stop the mother and son from being understood.
Fo Niemi, the executive director for the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations, is taking issue with the Commission's handling of the complaint — the Commission, for instance, refused to interview the young boy, who was at the centre of the case, and refused to speak with other key witnesses, including some who worked with Batshaw.
He also suggests the Commission gathered key information about the CJM which was inexplicably never disclosed during the investigation.
The mother was informed of the decision in January of this year, but Niemi suggests information recently received through access to information, as well as last week's resignation of the Human Rights Commission's chairman, raised new questions — for instance, the chairman was also the executive director of the Centre Jeunesse de la Montérégie on the South Shore in 2011, suggesting there may have been a possible conflict of interest.
Niemi is calling on the Quebec government to look into the matter.