Camil Picard, a trained psychologist who has been working for Quebec's Director of Youth Protection since the 1990s, denies charges in La Presse that he had had sexual relations with a 16-year-old boy in 1983 and later paid him $50-thousand to drop a lawsuit. (ici.radio-canada.ca)

Quebec children’s rights commissioner resigns under cloud

The head of Quebec’s human and children’s rights commission, Camil Picard, has resigned following a newspaper report that he is the focus of a police investigation.

Quebec’s justice minister, Stéphanie Valée, made the announcement Thursday, following a report in La Presse that Picard allegedly had sexual relations with a 16-year-old boy in 1983.

Picard denies the charges.

“I don’t know where you are getting this from,” he told La Presse.

Quebec Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée anounced the resignation of Camil Picard on Thursday. (CBC)

“I’m surprised and unsettled by what you are telling me. You can’t accuse somebody of something they haven’t been charged with and didn’t do.”

The report says Picard offered the boy a job in a group home for troubled youth and provided him with cocaine, red wine and gifts and allegedly had sexual relations “seven or eight times.”

Picard later allegedly paid the alleged victim, identified as Yvan Coté, $50-thousand to drop a law suit.

La Presse says its report is based on a sworn declaration Coté, who died in 2012, made to police in 2012.

According to La Presse, a Quebec City police investigation that included a hidden camera conversation between Picard and Coté did not result in charges by the Quebec Crown Prosecutor’s office.

La Presse, Montreal Gazette, Toronto Star

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