A year ago, the drama at the Sainte-Rose daycare

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Daycare employees and the children's families gathered in a park near the Ste-Rose Educational Daycare, where a bus had crashed during the very busy period when the little ones arrived for the day.< /p>

• Anne Marie Lecomte (View profile)Anne Marie Lecomte

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A year ago, in Sainte-Rose, a man driving a bus crashed into a daycare, causing the death of two children and injuring six others. Thursday, to the commemoration of this tragedy was added a debate on compensation for victims of criminal acts, the subject of a reform by the Legault government.

In Sainte-Rose, daycare employees and the children's families gathered in a park near the Ste-Rose Educational Daycare. The daycare had asked people not to leave flowers or stuffed animals outside the building, but rather to make a donation to the hospital foundations that had treated the little victims a year ago: la Cité-de -la-Santé in Laval and the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center (CHU), in Montreal.

C& #x27;was a very emotional ceremony, commented Sébastien Courtois, father of a little boy who was seriously injured during the attack. [We had] a lot of thoughts for the two little angels who were our everyday friends, the friends of our children.

Maëva David, five years old, and Jacob Gauthier, four years old, died that morning, while six other children were hospitalized, some seriously injured.

“It’s something tragic,” continued Mr. Courtois in an interview on Midi info on ICI Premiere.

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Mr. Courtois' son, Jules, now five years old, is doing well. He had a lot of challenges, whether physical or psychological, that you never want to impose on a four and a half year old child.

In Quebec, Prime Minister François Legault recalled this tragedy during a press briefing at the National Assembly.

I think that there is nothing worse for parents than losing a child, especially, in addition , the way it happened. So, obviously, today, I'm thinking of the parents, I'm thinking of the educators who were there, I'm also thinking of the first responders who arrived and saw this, and that it will probably […] stay with them head throughout their lives. So, I want to say to everyone: good luck!

The bus driver the Société de transport de Laval who crashed into the daycare, Pierre Ny St-Amand, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and seven other counts, including attempted murder and aggravated assault.

The preliminary investigation should begin on March 25, at the Saint-Jérôme courthouse (for a question of room availability). Ny St-Amand's lawyer indicated that he planned to argue that his client did not have the criminal intent to commit first-degree murder.< /p>

The 52-year-old accused is still detained at the National Institute of Forensic Psychiatry Philippe-Pinel , to Montreal. He was found fit to stand trial in February 2023, following a psychological evaluation conducted after his arrest.

A separate evaluation was later conducted on the defendant's mental state at the time of his alleged crimes to determine whether he should be considered criminally responsible for his actions. The report of this evaluation was sealed by the court in April 2023.

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In the wake of the commemoration of the tragedy, a debate on the reform of compensation for victims of criminal acts took place.

Alongside this commemoration ceremony, the question of compensation for victims of criminal acts (IVAC) was raised on Thursday since among the victims of this tragedy are people who will be deprived of compensation. two years from now, in the wake of a reform of the IVAC adopted by the government of François Legault in 2021.

This situation, described by the daily Le Devoir on Thursday, is notably that by Sébastien Courtois. His wife, who had gone to the scene of the tragedy, suffered post-traumatic shock upon seeing the equivalent of a war scene, with a lot of damage and a lot of rubble. , a lot of screaming, a lot of crying, as Mr. Courtois described it at Midi info. The latter was also tested and, like his wife, had to seek professional help.

But, he continues, the compensation granted by the IVAC for consultation with a psychologist, for example, is insufficient: The balance is our responsibility.

Do we have the ways to get better? Can we treat everyone in the family? We have to make choices and, as a victim of crime, this choice is a second sentence.

A quote from Sébastien Courtois, father of a child injured at the Sainte-Rose daycare

Under the reform, the length of time victims can receive compensation has been limited to three years. Whereas previously, the IVAC law provided that benefits were paid as long as the incapacity to work continued, and for life, if necessary, Marc Bellemare explained on ICI RDI, lawyer specializing in work and road accidents.

There is nothing that allows us , in science, to consider that post-traumatic stress, for example, ends after three years, says the lawyer.

In a press scrum on Thursday, François Legault defended the reform of the IVAC. Personally, I am very proud of what we have done in the reforms, declared the Prime Minister, explaining that the number of eligible people had doubled.

Recognizing that there were now time limits for receiving compensation, two, three, five years, depending on the case, Mr. Legault argued that& #x27;there were other programs for victims of crime.

It's what are the other programs? It's social assistance, these are amounts of last resort, lawyer Sophie Mongeon replied to this.

In interview at Midi info,Thursday, she affirmed that we could not thus fix in time the number of years required to recover physically and mentally from a criminal act or an accident of car. That's the big problem with the reform, she denounced.

De Furthermore, both the IVAC and the Société d'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) grant a maximum amount which does not really represent the price on the market, said Me Mongeon.

For the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ), it is necessary to reopen the law.

< p class="StyledBodyHtmlParagraph-sc-48221190-4 hnvfyV">He [the Prime Minister] must reopen the law and then he must accept the amendment that was tabled in Parliament. era, which ensured that lifetime compensation was maintained, underlined the leader of the PLQ, Marc Tanguay, during a press briefing.

It is not true that a person, overnight, has an anniversary of two years, three years old, no longer has any needs and then has to be abandoned. And he never gave up on that. And that's what we unfortunately see today, he insisted.

The parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, indicated that as soon as the law was adopted, his party had raised the issue with Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette: Put an expiration date [ …] is this really a good idea?

We invite the minister to be open, flexible, compassionate and to see what we can do, in Quebec, to not let victims of violence fall by the wayside. criminal acts, suggested Mr. Nadeau-Dubois.

As for the Parti Québécois, it believes that the law must be changed.

In the case of victims, we speak of victims of criminal acts, we impose on them a meter, then, after a year, after three years, you return to work at all costs. I think that Quebec is a more sensitive, humanist and caring society, and, in this sense, we invite people to sign our petition. And, indeed, we must change the law, underlined MP Joël Arseneau.

With information from The Canadian Press

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