Quebec Education Minister Yves Bolduc responds to Opposition questions Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015 at the legislature in Quebec City. Bolduc defended a school decision to strip search a 15-year-old girl. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques BoissinotJacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
With one noticeable exception, everyone can see that a Quebec City high-school principal went too far last week when she strip-searched a student suspected of dealing pot. A female staff member held a blanket in front of the student, a girl aged 15, while the principal, also female, inspected each item of clothing as it was handed to her. The girl says she was left naked and humiliated, a version of events the school is not disputing.
The story is shocking and unacceptable, made worse by the fact that the one person who doesn't see it that way is Yves Bolduc, Quebec's Minister of Education.
Mr. Bolduc responded to the incident by saying that high-school students can be strip-searched by school staff, "as long as it is done very respectfully." An assistant to the Minister said he based his opinion on a manual for teachers written by the Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police force.
This is a gross misinterpretation of the necessary powers of school staff to search students and their property. For example, if teachers suspect a student is carrying a weapon or dealing drugs, a 1998 Supreme Court of Canada ruling gives them the right to inspect a locker or a backpack, and to search a student's clothing and person. That search has to be respectful and minimally invasive, the court said — words the SQ repeated in its manual, and which seem to have guided Mr. Bolduc.
But the SQ never mentions strip searches, and neither did the court ruling. In that case, a principal acting on information that a student was selling drugs in the school ordered the student to his office. The student was made to empty his pockets and then pull up his pant legs, revealing a bulge in his socks. An RCMP officer was present, and the boy was immediately arrested for possession of marijuana. The court had no problem with that.
But when it comes to strip searches, the Supreme Court in 2001 called them "inherently humiliating and degrading." Even the police, when they've made an arrest, are severely limited in their use of strip searches. They are not, for instance, allowed to force a suspect to be completely naked except in the most extreme circumstances.
Mr. Bolduc is right that there are many situations where students can be searched. He is dead wrong that they can be strip-searched.
The Minister has since backtracked and said he will order an investigation into the incident. It would be more helpful if he did his homework and made it clear this should never happen again in a Quebec school.