Quebec pledges millions to fight child abuse

In an all-out effort to save Nunavik's children from abuse and neglect, Quebec will pump an additional $5.5 million each year into Nunavik's health and social services department, along with $31 million to build new staff housing for social service workers.

These are "significant and rapid responses," Quebec's health minister Philippe Couillard told the Katimajiit meeting on Nunavik's social and economic development last week in Kuujjuaq.

With this money, Couillard says his department is responding to nearly all the 21 recommendations made earlier this summer by Quebec's commission for human rights and the rights of children and youth.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest, who was asked by the human rights commission to personally intervene in improving conditions for Nunavik children and youth, called the report "brutal" and "hard to read."

"None of us here can accept what it describes," he said. "Things must change. They absolutely must change."

LINK: Nunatsiaq News