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Duplessis Orphans: 'The Mother's Saint'

During the reign of Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis in the 1940s and 1950s, an alarming number of healthy children living in sanctuaries were hastily diagnosed as mentally incompetent, psychotic patients. The diagnoses were always swift — the children went to bed orphans and woke up psychiatric patients. The reason? Shrewd fiscal planning; federal subsidies paid out more to hospitals than to orphanages. Some children allegedly endured lobotomies, electroshock, straitjackets and abuse. For the rest of their lives they would struggle to bring attention to their story and demand compensation. They called themselves the Duplessis Orphans.

Ed Roy grew up hearing stories of abuse his foster mother, Madeleine, suffered when she was young. Roy and his relatives only half-believed her, suspecting her tales were more exaggeration than truth. Madeleine died before the Duplessis Orphans made their case public in 1992. But the airing of their story prompted Roy to investigate his foster mother's history. After satisfying himself that Madeleine's story was true, Roy, now a playwright, was determined to retell it in a play. He describes the The Mother's Saint in this CBC Radio interview. 
. Roy actively researched his foster mother's history, sorting through archives and medical records to determine if she was, as he suspected, one of the Duplessis Orphans. "I formed my own theories, as a detective does, as I gathered information, of what it was adding up to," he told the National Post. "When I finally hit paydirt and solved the mystery, my suspicions were proved true." — in the National Post, Feb. 19, 2000

• The seven religious orders implicated in the orphans' charges are:
- the Sisters of Providence
- Sisters of Charity of Quebec
- Sisters of Mercy
- the Grey Nuns of Montreal
- the Small Franciscans of Mary
- the Brothers of Charity
- and the Brothers of Our Lady of Mercy.
. As of 2005, these religious orders have refused to respond to the allegations.
Medium: Radio
Program: The Arts Today
Broadcast Date: Feb. 15, 2000
Guest(s): Ed Roy
Host: Erika Ritter
Duration: 6:40

Last updated: March 23, 2012

Page consulted on May 14, 2013

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