Quebec Foster Care Reform: Laurent Commission, Santé Québec, and What Changed

The child who died in Granby in 2019 was seven years old. Her case had been known to the DPJ. The failure was not one person's decision — it was systemic. When the story became public, it produced a kind of collective reckoning in Quebec that had been building for years. The system was underfunded, overworked, and operating without the structural accountability that children's lives required.

Quebec responded by launching the Special Commission on the Rights of the Child and Youth Protection, chaired by Régine Laurent. The report that came out of that commission — and the legislative and administrative changes that followed — fundamentally reshaped the Quebec foster care landscape. Any family entering the system in 2025 or 2026 is navigating a system that is still actively being reformed.

The Laurent Commission: What It Found

The Special Commission on the Rights of the Child and Youth Protection, struck in 2019, released its final report in May 2021. The 550-page report documented what child protection workers, academics, and families had long argued: the system was chronically underfunded, workers carried impossible caseloads, and children were being failed by a structure that prioritized administrative compliance over child welfare.

The report's central message was a call for a "paradigm shift" — away from a reactive, crisis-driven intervention model toward a prevention-focused system that identifies children at risk before the situation becomes an emergency. It made over 100 recommendations across areas including:

• Prevention and early intervention: Significant new investment in community-based prevention programs to reduce the number of children requiring DPJ intervention
• Foster family recruitment and support: Recognition that chronic shortages of foster families were driving children into institutional placements, with calls for better compensation, training, and ongoing support for foster families
• Stability and permanency: Recommendations to reduce the number of placement moves children experience, with greater emphasis on permanency planning from the earliest stages of intervention
• Indigenous children: Specific acknowledgment of the disproportionate representation of Indigenous children in the DPJ system and the need to support Indigenous communities' capacity to care for their own children
• Systemic accountability: New oversight mechanisms and reporting requirements to prevent cases from falling through institutional cracks

The Laurent Commission's work had the effect of putting foster care recruitment on the public agenda in a way that had not happened before. Calls to regional DPJ recruitment lines reportedly increased following media coverage of the report.

Bill 15 and the Creation of Santé Québec

In December 2023, the Quebec government passed Bill 15 — An Act to make the health and social services system more effective — which represents the most significant structural reform to the health and social services network since the creation of the CISSS/CIUSSS system in 2015.

Bill 15 creates "Santé Québec" as a central governing agency that becomes the sole employer of all health and social services personnel in the province. Previously, the 16 regional institutions employed their staff independently under regional collective agreements. Under Bill 15, all workers across the network — including youth protection social workers and the staff who support foster families — become employees of Santé Québec.

The stated goal is standardization and efficiency: eliminating administrative duplication, improving human resources mobility across regions, and creating uniform service standards across Quebec's vast geographic territory.

For foster families, the implications are still unfolding. Some key concerns raised by stakeholders:

Centralization vs. local knowledge. The regional institutions, including designated English-language institutions like Batshaw, developed their service models over decades and have deep knowledge of their specific communities. Advocates for English-speaking Quebecers have raised concerns that Santé Québec's drive for standardization may dilute the autonomy of designated institutions and reduce the practical availability of English-language services.

Administrative transitions. The transition to Santé Québec is creating administrative disruptions across the health network. For prospective foster families, this may mean longer response times, changes in contact procedures, and transitional uncertainty about who manages what.

Foster family recognition portability. Santé Québec's standardization may ultimately make it easier for recognized foster families to transfer their recognition between regions — a longstanding challenge. This is not yet operational but is an area to watch.

Indigenous Child Welfare Reform: Bill C-92

At the federal level, the Act Respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis Children, Youth and Families (Bill C-92), passed in 2019, gives Indigenous communities the legal right to assert jurisdiction over child and family services, independent of provincial systems.

In Quebec, several Indigenous communities have moved meaningfully on this right:

Atikamekw of Opitciwan. In March 2025, the Atikamekw Nation of Opitciwan signed a bilateral agreement with the Government of Canada, establishing their own social protection laws for children and families. Their child welfare system now operates independently of the DPJ, under Atikamekw law and governance.

Cree Nation and Nunavik Inuit. These communities have operated partially independent health and social services systems since the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA) of 1975. The Cree Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay and the Nunavik regional health authority have long operated with greater autonomy from the CISSS/CIUSSS network.

First Nations Child and Family Services Commission (CSSSPNQL). The Commission de la santé et des services sociaux des premières nations du Québec et du Labrador supports First Nations communities in developing community-based child welfare services aligned with customary practices and Indigenous governance.

For non-Indigenous foster families in Quebec, these changes do not directly affect the application process. But they matter for understanding the system's direction: children who are Indigenous and in the DPJ system are increasingly likely to be subject to specific protocols requiring cultural matching, placement within the community, and eventually community-operated care — not provincial DPJ placement in non-Indigenous homes.

Ma Famille, Ma Communauté: Prevention Before Placement

One direct response to the Laurent Commission's prevention emphasis is the expansion of the Ma famille, ma communauté program. This initiative, run by Batshaw Youth and Family Centres in the Montreal West Island area, convenes "Team Decision Meetings" involving the child's family, community members, English-language schools, social pediatrics partners, and DPJ workers.

The goal is to identify and mobilize community resources around a child before formal DPJ placement becomes necessary. For English-speaking families with connections to a child at risk, this program provides a structured, community-led alternative to the DPJ intake process.

The program is explicitly designed to prevent placement by building a network of support around the family. It reflects the Laurent Commission's recommendation that the DPJ not be the first and only institution intervening in children's lives.

Permanency and Tutorship

One of the Laurent Commission's recommendations with direct impact on foster families is the emphasis on permanency planning — ensuring that children do not spend years in the foster care system without a clear long-term plan.

In Quebec, one important permanency option is tutelle (tutorship) under the Civil Code. When a child cannot return to their biological family but adoption is not appropriate or desired, a court can appoint a tutor — often the foster parent who has cared for the child over years — who receives full parental authority over the child without necessarily severing the legal bond of filiation with the biological parents.

Tutorship provides stability without the legal finality of adoption. For children who have strong existing bonds with biological relatives but cannot safely return to them, or for foster parents who have built deep relationships with a child but are not pursuing formal adoption, tutorship is a meaningful permanency option.

The Laurent Commission called for clearer, faster pathways to permanency for children in long-term care. While the legislative changes are still being implemented, there is increased institutional pressure on DPJ workers to make permanency plans earlier in a child's care trajectory.

What It Means for Families Entering the System Now

Families applying to become foster parents in Quebec in 2025 and 2026 are entering a system actively in transition. The Laurent Commission's recommendations are still being phased in. Santé Québec's structural changes are creating transitional disruptions. Indigenous communities are asserting new jurisdiction. Prevention programs are expanding.

The core process — contact your regional DPJ, attend an information session, complete the evaluation, receive recognition — remains consistent. But the context is different from five years ago: there is more public awareness of the need for foster families, more institutional attention to foster family support and retention, and a legislative environment that is moving toward greater standardization, permanency, and community-based prevention.

For a complete English-language guide to navigating the current Quebec foster care system — including the practical implications of the reform agenda for applicants and recognized resources — the Quebec Foster Care Guide covers the full system with the context of where it is today.

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