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Joliette, 5 Avril 2011 Government of Quebec Jean-Marc Fournier Justice Ministry Public Prosecutor Louis-Philippe Pigeon Building 1200,route de l'Église Québec (Québec) G1V 4M1 Société des Alcools du Québec Succ Radisson 7550, Sherbrooke Est Montréal, (Québec) H1N IE8 Re: Desecration of the Human Remains of Duplessis Orphans Sir, My reason for writing to the Justice Ministry of Quebec is that the Commission for Victims of Crimes against Humanity and the Children of the Great Darkness Committee (Comité Les Enfants de la Grande Noirceur) in the Duplessis Orphans case want to know what happen to the bones found on a piece of land belonging originally to the Catholic Orders Sisters of Providence of Montreal who sold a piece of land from the St-Jean-de-Dieu Hospital grounds named The Pig Sty Cemetery intentionally in order to erase it's memory. It is there that until 1958, more than 2,000 inmates of St-Jean-de-Dieu were buried, among whom were Duplessis Orphans to the Quebec Liquor Board for the sum of $4.9 million dollars sold these lots in 1974 and 1979. In 1976 the hospital changed its name to Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital. No inscription recalls this forgotten past. The sales certificate, which does not mention the former cemetery, releases the Sisters from “all guarantee or responsibility concerning the state, the composition and the degree of compaction of the soil and sub-soil”. In the Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital archives, the cemetery records are empty - no photo, no document. And the hospital's death registry is confidential, indicates director Denise Champagne. The only memories would be the 'private archives' of the sisters, access to which is denied to us 'for the moment.' An inquiry was made by the Journal de Montréal starting May 11, 1999, the paper recovered traces of the cemetery, open in 1877, on different maps from the turn of the century. On them, one sees the location of the vault and the cemetery measuring 100 feet by 100 feet and enlarged in 1904. The ‘sick’ and the Sisters’ employees had dubbed it 'the pig sty cemetery' as it was situated near their Hog farm. At Montreal City Hall and in the National archives, maps, and aerial photos confirm its presence until the end of the 1950's. In 1958, the cemetery was closed indefinitely after 81 years of operation. The sisters already affirmed having exhumed all the bodies in 1967, but the discovery of skeletal remains was noted in the 1970's. It is the police service of the sisters which investigated the deaths which occurred at the asylum. The Ministry of Citizens Relations of Quebec, in charge of the direction of the civil state, refuses to make public the registry of deaths and burials of the former Saint-Jean-de-Dieu parish. This is personal information protected by law, explained Guylaine Sirois, invoking articles of the new civil Code. Now no annual report remains regarding the administration of the Sisters of Providence's Hospital between 1935 and 1953. Curious Causes of Death From 1955 to 1958, one notes the deaths of 17 persons less than 20 years old. From 1956 to 1958, 15 deaths were classified as 'accidents and suicides' and tens of others tied to surgical interventions, But the statistics are established according to the diagnosis of the 'sickness' of the patient, and not according to the cause of death. As if, for example, 'mental deficiency' could be in and of itself a cause of mortality. Certificates and autopsy reports, which are not public, were established by the hospital physicians, whose diagnosis of the orphans were placed in doubt. At that time, only the hospital police service, set up by the sisters, was authorized to investigate on the property which constituted a distinct municipality of Montreal. Several victims of bad treatment buried without inquest? “The records of various organizations contain ultra-secrets documents. Information is found here about mysterious deaths of children mistreated by educators and overly