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Gabriel Leblanc says he’s feeling a lot less alone these days.
Leblanc, 21, is a co-lead plaintiff in a proposed class-action lawsuit against the Nova Scotia government over allegations that youths were subjected to a form of solitary confinement at a provincially run facility.
The class-action lawsuit is an expansion of a lawsuit filed by Leblanc and two other former facility residents last October. After their concerns were covered by CBC News and other outlets, more than 25 others have come forward to say they experienced similar treatment.
“That’s pretty powerful,” said Emma Halpern, the legal director for Path Legal, the non-profit law firm backing Leblanc’s group.
Halpern said the firm has never seen such “a big wave of individuals calling us saying, ‘This happened to me too.'”
“That harm is still real for them, that they are still living with the consequences of what they went through,” she said.
The lawsuit was submitted to Supreme Court in Halifax this week. It involves Wood Street Centre, a facility for youth between the ages of 12 and 18 who are in government care and have been deemed to have an emotional or behavioural disorder. The centre in Truro, N.S., is divided into two sides comprising an 18-bed “residential” section and 20-bed “treatment” facility.
The lawsuit alleges rooms known as “therapeutic quiet rooms,” or TQRs, were used as a form of discipline at Wood Street Centre.
“I think that they are gross, inhumane punishment that needs to be abolished and they really have no room in our facilities in this province,” Gabriel Leblanc said in a phone interview Thursday.
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Three people are suing the province over things they say happened during their time in government care. The lawsuit focuses on conditions at the Wood Street Centre, a provincially run facility in Truro. This story discusses a person self-harming during a mental health crisis. The CBC’s Shaina Luck has the story.
Leblanc told CBC News that he estimated he was placed in a TQR more than 50 times. He described it as a white, unfurnished concrete room with a metal door and an observation window.
Leblanc said he wasn’t permitted to leave the TQR for any reason, and that while inside he began to have thoughts of death and self-harm. He said he usually spent about an hour in the TQR but his longest stay was four hours. He wasn’t able to measure time but says staff told him afterward how long he’d been inside.
Leblanc said if he needed the bathroom, he was forced to wait.
The lawsuit alleges that youth were placed in a TQR because they didn’t follow an order or talked back to staff.
“Many of which would be considered perfectly typical teenage behaviours,” said Halpern. “That is something very serious and something that we need to understand, and that has caused a lot of harm.”
The lawsuit’s allegations have not been tested in court, and a defence by the province must still be filed. Path Legal says it has given a required two months of notice to the provincial government.
The original lawsuit filed by three people in October has been discontinued and no defence was filed in that case. It has since been re-started as the class-action lawsuit.
A spokesperson for the provincial Department of Opportunities and Social Development declined to comment on a matter before the courts, but said it prioritizes the safety and well-being of youth in care.
“Staff providing Child and Family Wellbeing services are grounded in professional standards, practice values and strong dedication to children, youth and families in Nova Scotia,” the statement continued.
A court must approve or “certify” the proposed class-action in order for it to go ahead. Typically class-action suits take more than a year to resolve but Leblanc says he wants to move forward with it.
“It brings more people in, because this is a very broad issue that isn’t selective to three people,” he said.
Path Legal says its proposed class-action lawsuit would cover any young person who spent any length of time in a TQR at the Wood Street Centre between 2011 and the present.
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