A Laval teenager has taken a complaint to Quebec's human and youth rights commission, after she was denied a chance to study abroad upon disclosing she'd been treated a year earlier for depression.

Clémentine Côté-Bélanger, 17, said that everything was set for her year abroad in Norway, until the international student exchange organization through which she'd applied, ASSE Canada, asked for a clarification on information contained in her medical records.

After explaining that she had seen a psychiatrist to treat a bout of depression, her confirmation was suddenly revoked.

"It's like if I had done something wrong" by seeking help, Côté-Bélanger told CBC Montreal's Daybreak. "But I didn't — I did something good."

"I felt it was very unfair."

Now in good health, doctor attests

Côté-Bélanger said ASSE Canada told her in early March that her trip was approved and that she'd be going to Norway in September.

She'd already found a host family and had started the process to obtain her student visa, on top of paying $9,400 to ASSE.

ASSE reimbursed the money, but by the time Côté-Bélanger got word her exchange had been revoked, the deadline to apply to CEGEPs in Quebec had already passed.

Her father, Eric Bélanger, stepped in to try to resolve the situation. Her doctor attested that she was now in good health, and her parents offered to sign a document saying they would not hold ASSE Canada responsible if something happened to their daughter while she was abroad.

ASSE Canada still refused.

In correspondence with Bélanger obtained by CBC, ASSE Canada's director, Allen Fortin, wrote that "it is not a right, but rather a privilege to be accepted into the program" and that there is a "process that is followed" to be accepted.

ASSE Canada did not respond to CBC's requests for comment.

Stigma persists

Côté-Bélanger said her first reaction was simple frustration, but she now sees her situation as a symptom of a greater problem — the lingering stigma around mental illness.

"I'm more mad about the paradox in our society that says we have to talk about [mental health]," she said. "But when you talk about it, people start to judge you and not act the same way with you."

"It's a pretty common thing to feel sometimes depressed."

And she's doing her part to end the stigma, talking about what happened and laying her official complaint. The human rights and youth rights commission is still evaluating her case.

No matter what, if she had to go back and do it all again, Côté-Bélanger said, she would still disclose her past episode of depression, even if it led to the refusal.

"We shouldn't be afraid of what we went through in the past, and we should always talk about it," she said.

"We should be honest about it and go forward."

And when one door closes, another opens.

Côté-Bélanger found a solution for next year: she will work with horses at a national park in Denmark, while completing her CEGEP studies online.