The Duplessis orphans

The Duplessis orphans (French: les Orphelins de Duplessis) is the name given to thousands of orphans who had been improperly diagnosed as mentally incompetent by the government of Quebec, Canada and confined to psychiatric institutions under the Duplessis government.

Maurice Duplessis was the premier of Quebec from 1944-59. During those years, thousands of Quebec orphans were sent to asylums and to other church-run institutions because the province could get more to care for people labelled mentally deficient. Orphanages and schools were the financial responsibility of provincial government but a funding for mental institution was also provided by the federal government.  Between 1945 and 1960, the federal government paid out 70 cents a day per orphan to orphanages. Psychiatric hospitals received a subsidy of $2.25 per day, per patient — as reported in the Gazette, July 4, 2002.

Beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1960s, Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis in cooperation with the Roman Catholic Church which ran the orphanages, developed a scheme to obtain Federal funding for thousands of children. Many of the Duplessis Orphans were in fact not orphans but simply children born out of wedlock or to extremely poor families.

Many survivors say they were sexually abused at the orphanages and forced to work in slave-labour conditions. In an interview with the Montreal Gazette, Duplessis Orphan Hervé Bertrand recalled the day he was improperly diagnosed. He was a third grade student at the Mount Providence orphanage in 1955 when Dr. Bernard Piché paid a visit to his class. "Until that day we were all considered normal," he told reporter Janet Bagnall. "I was asked what the word 'compare' meant. I didn't know. We hadn't studied it yet. That's how it was decided that I was retarded." From that day forward, Bertrand and many other children were pulled from their classes. Genuine psychiatric patients moved into the converted orphanages and lived side by side with the children. Some children were sent out to work with farmers while other children performed maintenance within the hospitals. Bertrand recalled harsh discipline if he refused his orders. "I was beaten, I was tied up, I was made to work," he told the Toronto Star in an article Aug. 15, 1992.

In 1942, the Legislative Assembly of Quebec passed into a law that allowed the Roman Catholic Church running the orphanages to sell unclaimed bodies of any orphan to medical schools for $10. This practice of selling orphans' remains continued into the 1960s. No one knows how many ended up on the dissection table for medical students. According to testimony by individuals who were at the Cite de St. Jean de Dieu insane asylum, now named Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine Hospital, the orphans were routinely experimented upon and many died.

Paul St. Aubin, one of the so-called orphans, told CFCF News he received electroshock therapy and was lobotomized during his 18 years at Cite de St. Jean de Dieu, And Sylvio Vincent, who lived at the same hospital, said it was his job to wash the bodies of those who died in the operating ward. He said many of the bodies he saw had holes in their heads. In 2004, members of the "Duplessis Orphans" asked the Quebec government to unearth an abandoned cemetery in the east end of Montreal which they believe holds the remains of orphans who may have been the subject of medical experiments. The group wants the government to exhume the bodies in order that autopsies can be done .

For the rest of their lives they would struggle to bring attention to their story and demand compensation. In early 1990, orphans are mobilizing and demanding justice and reparations. They lead an unequal struggle to break the collective amnesia that Quebec society has maintained towards them. They want to finally break the anonymity of shame… In 2002, the province agreed to pay a settlement of about $25,000 to each of the surviving 1,100 orphans labeled as mentally deficient, but did not include any compensation for victims of sexual or other abuse. In 2006, Charest government has reserved the same treatment for those who until then had been left out.

The estimated number of Duplessis Orphans ranges enormously from 1,500 to 20,000 according to source. Some argue that those who were misdiagnosed as mentally retarded were technically Duplessis Orphans. Others say the group should include all orphans during this time period.

Sources:
 Wikipedia. Duplessis orphans.
 CBC Archives. The Duplessis orphans.
CTV.ca Duplessis orphans want Mtl. burial site dug up.
CBC News.ca Duplessis Orphans seek proof of Medial experiement
TQS.ca Les enfants de Duplessis indemnisés.
Archives Radio-Canada. Orphelins de Duplessis, enfants d'asile