Thinking of children first

Kévin Roy, president

Dear friends,

I have talked a lot about youth protection on this blog in the past few months. Today’s article will continue that trend. What else can we do when we see the news of the last few days, weeks and months?

The case of the Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac school has been widely publicized in the past week. I sincerely hope that the shock that these recordings have caused in our society will be a turning point and that we will collectively take the decision to explore all options to better protect our youth in their living and learning environment. I wrote a letter to the Minister of Education on this topic, which was published in the Journal de Montréal yesterday. I invite you to read it and share it if you agree.

In my opinion, the safety and success of our children should be the number one priority of all those involved in the school network, in all their actions. It’s about protecting their physical and mental well-being, nothing else.

I am pleased that the recommendations and requests of the Federation of Parents’ Committees have contributed to a number of advances related to the well-being of students in the past month:

• The bill to prevent and fight sexual violence was reintroduced last week by an opposition party. We will continue to call for this bill to be considered by the National Assembly, in support of La voix des jeunes compte, the group who is behind this initiative.
• Proposed regulations to ban flavours in vaping products and make them less appealing to youth have been published. We have been asking for these changes for several years and will continue to do so until the regulation comes into effect.
• Our recommendations regarding the bill respecting the regulation of work by children were well received and were taken up in parliamentary committee, despite the fact that parents were not invited to attend.

I believe that every effort must be made to ensure that youth feel comfortable in school and have all the tools to succeed. One of the solutions is to ensure that parents take their place as key figures in the school network. There should be an open, two-way communication between school and home to promote coeducation. Collaboration and transparency between parent participation instances and school personnel are important, as well as awareness and respect for each other’s roles and responsibilities. We must work together, with the best interests of the students as our priority.

Thank you for being present and for caring about the well-being of the youth.