November 13, 2001 - 4 — Le Protecteur du citoyen

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31st Annual Rapport of the Québec Ombudsman (2000–2001)

"The Citizen Always Comes First"

A few examples of poor administration with harmful consequences

Québec City, November 13, 2001

The right to complete and accurate information is not an arbitrary whim. It allows the citizen to make an enlightened decision and, if need be, to exercise recourse.

A citizen who claimed that the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec had paid him no interest following a correction made in his file in 1996, and which entitled him to a significant income replacement indemnity amount retroactive to 1983, called on the Quebec Ombudsman. The investigation revealed that a sum of $10,000 had been paid to him in interest in December 1996, but without an attached note of explanation. The Quebec Ombudsman then asked the Société to provide the citizen with the detailed calculation of interest paid so that he could check the accuracy of this amount. A significant error was then discovered: the interest paid to the citizen had been calculated from 1991 and not from 1983. Following the Québec Ombudsman's intervention, the Société paid additional interest of more than $37,000, accompanied by a written decision informing the citizen of his right to appeal (p. 145).
The Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'Alimentation wrongly revoked and without notifying the owners, the permit of a group of associates after one had withdrawn from the group. It was during a routine inspection by the Department that the group learned that its permit was no longer valid. The Department ordered the group to renew it immediately or it would receive a notice of infraction and be liable to a fine. After an investigation, the Québec Ombudsman concluded that the Department had failed to notify the associates of the revocation of their permit, as stipulated by law, and that the requirement to obtain a new permit was unjustified, since the resignation had caused no change of legal entity and had not caused the company to be dissolved. The Department agreed with the Québec Ombudsman's position, and continued to honour the validity of the permit. Furthermore, the Department changed its procedure to prevent the recurrence of similar errors (p. 23).

Unreasonable delays may be noted, they may be resolved, but the damage is done.

A citizen and mother of four children sent her income tax return to the Ministère du Revenu within the deadline stipulated by law and was still awaiting her assessment notice in June 2000. She called the Department, and an agent informed her that he could not find her return. She therefore hurried to send a copy by registered mail. In August, the Régie des rentes du Québec suspended her family allowance payments because it had not received any data on the citizen from the Department. In October, still without any news from the Department, the citizen called again, only to learn that her return had not been processed. She then took a second copy of her income tax return in person to the tax office, on which the agent wrote "Urgent". In mid-December, she called the Department again and was told that her file was not registered in the computer system. Desperate, she contacted the Québec Ombudsman who learned that the return was finally under review. The Québec Ombudsman then requested accelerated processing, which was granted, and the tax data was sent to the Régie for the payment of the family allowance. Thus, because of highly questionable conduct on the part of the Department in this case, a mother of four children was deprived of family benefits for several months (p. 71).
Inmates at the Saint-Jérôme detention centre called on the Québec Ombudsman to complain about the length of time it takes the classification committee to convene and study their transfer requests. The study revealed that the members of the classification committee sit on three committees, and that priority was given to the Discipline Committee and the Temporary Absence Committee. Following the Québec Ombudsman's intervention, the situation was corrected, but the inmates had to wait an excessive length of time (p. 99).
A citizen who was entitled to receive support payments for her daughter from 1991 had not received a penny from the debtor, and the arrears now totaled $250,000. Because all the debtor's assets belonged to companies, the debtor did not have anything in his own name. In 1992, the citizen called on the Ministère de la Justice, then responsible for collection. In 1996, the file was sent to the Ministère du Revenu, henceforth responsible for collecting support payments. In spring 1998, given the debtor's repeated refusals to comply with the court decision, the file was sent to the legal services unit so that it could launch legal proceedings for contempt of court. But nothing seemed to be happening! The Québec Ombudsman learned that the case would be heard on December 15, 1999. In February 2000, the case still had not been heard: the legal services unit lawyer, working alone, was swamped and could not process the file. Finally, the case was heard in December 2000. The Québec Ombudsman recommended that the two departments—Justice and Revenu—join forces and take action so that the legal services unit staff, responsible for collecting support payments, be empowered to act more quickly. The outcome remains to be seen (p. 81).

Administrative inflexibility can be unreasonable.

Forced to conduct a "cleanout" because his herd was afflicted by sickness, a pig producer disposed of his sows from March 10 to 13, 1999. He asked the Régie des assurances agricoles to compensate this loss in compliance with the stabilization insurance plan. He noted that the Régie had excluded the month of March in its calculation of the indemnity. In fact, the Régie deemed that no production occurred in the month in which the producer disposed of his animals. In the Québec Ombudsman's view, the herd's lack of productivity during the month in which it was disposed of constituted a questionable motive because the birth of piglets may not occur in any case, during any given month. The Régie agreed with the Québec Ombudsman's viewpoint, and recalculated the indemnity, paying an additional amount of some $2,000 to the producer (p. 135).
An employment benefit recipient found a job and recorded the name of the employer and the date she would begin work on the form provided for this purpose. Her agent notified her that her benefits would then be reduced by $175, as stipulated by law. The following month the citizen notified her agent that she was no longer working. Despite this notification, the Ministère de l'Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale continued to reduce her benefit by $175. Several months elapsed before an agent noticed the error and offered to refund her an amount equivalent to the reduction over three months. The Quebec Ombudsman's investigation revealed that the citizen had in fact reported the termination of her employment and that, in good faith, she hoped her benefits would be adjusted. The Department contested and argued that the citizen had a maximum period of 90 days to contest the mistaken decision. The Québec Ombudsman showed that the citizen should not be penalized for a mistake she had not committed, and the Department refunded her the amount of $1,050 (p. 42).

Principles arising from the law are not always respected.

In May 1994, a psychiatrist, treating a child who had been the victim of sexual assaults, diagnosed severe behavioural disorders and recommended a stay in a treatment centre. In May 1995, the Direction de l'indemnisation des victimes d'actes criminels (IVAC) accepted the claim made by the child's parents. In August 1995, the psychiatrist added that the child's behavioural problems were the consequence of the sexual assaults he had endured. IVAC granted the parents the refund for their child's placement. In July 1996, an IVAC agent decided to stop the payment, because he deemed that these expenses had no relation to the assaults sustained. The parents contested. In June 1997, the agent's decision was upheld. The Québec Ombudsman stressed that the initial decision could not be overturned in the absence of new information and that all the medical evidence proved the need for the child's placement. IVAC accepted the arguments advanced by the Québec Ombudsman (p. 114).

Private life: why seek unnecessary information?

A citizen who had lived abroad because of his employment requested the renewal of his Québec health insurance card. The Régie required a copy of his employment contract to verify the length of his stay outside the province. The citizen merely provided the first page of the contract, since he felt the other sections contained personal information. The Régie refused to renew his card, arguing that it had insufficient information to establish the dates and the duration of his absence. The Québec Ombudsman concluded that the Régie was entitled to require any official document that confirmed the dates and the length of the citizen's stay abroad in order to establish his entitlement to the renewal of his card, but that it was unreasonable to demand personal information that was irrelevant to establishing his eligibility. The Régie accepted the Québec Ombudsman's conclusion, and the citizen merely had to provide the employer's attestation that confirmed the dates and the length of his contract (p. 129).

Oversights that prove to be costly for citizens.

A businessman had accumulated a debt of $87,000 to the Ministère du Revenu for failing to remit taxes. He decided to pay off this debt, and tried in vain to make arrangements with the Department's tax collection agent. He then turned to his MNA, who proposed a repayment schedule, asking that the interest be cancelled. In a letter dated September 20, 2000, the Department notified the citizen that it rejected his request, claiming that the business' situation did not justify an inability to pay, and called on the citizen to contact its agent again—failing this, collection action would be undertaken. The citizen only received the letter on October 13 and noticed, a few days later, that his bank account was "frozen" and that the balance had been sent to the Department! Furthermore, collection fees of $5,509 were added to the balance owed. The citizen did not dispute the Department's refusal to cancel the interest, and a settlement was reached on October 19. However, feeling he had been wronged by the time it took the Department to inform him of its refusal to cancel the interest on the debt, the businessman called on the Quebec Ombudsman. The investigation revealed that the Department's letter had not been sent to the right address in the first place, because it had been sent to the incorrect address cited in the MNA's letter. The Québec Ombudsman recommended that the Department withdraw the collection fees of $5,509, which it did (p. 72).
A photographer became incapacitated, and the Public Curator was appointed to collect and protect his property, including several professional cameras. When the photographer regained health, he reclaimed his property and noted that several cameras and lenses were missing. Since the Public Curator had not made a detailed inventory of the photographer's property, it was impossible for it to confirm whether or not some of the property had disappeared or whether the photographer had recovered it. The photographer therefore claimed $56,000 from the Public Curator to replace his missing equipment. The Public Curator finally agreed to accept the Québec Ombudsman's recommendation to give the benefit of the doubt to the citizen and refund him the amount of $25,000 to compensate for the losses he sustained (p. 122).
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