filed by the mother of the 5-month-old baby. On
the basis of the information in hand, the director
of the DPJE took the view that the alleged child
physical abuse in the BCW was occuring in a
cultic environment. He therefore planned the
investigation of those complaints of child
physical abuse in a broadranging and
comprehensive manner, rather than assigning
cases to individual social workers as if they were
unrelated to each other. He also sought the
collaboration of the Eastern Township Centre
for Social Services (CSSE4) in order to form a
specialized team of social workers,
psychologists, and lawyers to ensure optimal
handling of the various aspects of the
investigations at hand. He additionally consulted
with known experts of the field, including the
third author, with a view toward better
understanding this particular group and also
group functioning and leadership. A plan was
then put in place and, as of the third week of
March 1985, social workers began to contact
parents of the BCW to assess both their
children’s situations and the allegations of
physical abuse that had been made.
Pastor X, who had not been called in for
questioning by the police or by the DPJE, did
not show any signs of worry. He repeatedly told
his followers that the police and the DPJE could
not prove anything, and that the investigation
would soon be over. He told parents to
nonetheless respond to social workers’ requests
for interviews otherwise, they would risk seeing
their children taken away. He ordered BCW
members to lie about the use of corporal
punishment, and he suspended its practice
temporarily so that marks could not be found on
children’s bodies. He furthermore forbade
followers from speaking to reporters, and
instructed them to cease all remaining contact
with people outside the church, including former
members, who were deemed to be “spies” and
“deserters.” He claimed that any action against
the church was an action against him and part of
a plot masterminded by former members who
were corrupted by Satan and determined to
4 Known as the Centre des services sociaux de l’Estrie (CSSE), the
function of this organization is to coordinate all types of social
services dispensed in a given administrative region.
destroy the congregation. He described social
workers and other social-control agents, along
with the press, as pawns used by Satan through
former members of the church.
Social workers assigned to families of the BCW
had been instructed to be very discreet in their
investigations: They were to attempt to see
whether the children’s needs were met and
whether they were subjected to punishments that
were likely to compromise their safety or their
development, according to the province’s Youth
Protection Act, also knowned as Law 24. To
avoid putting children at risk of being punished
for revealing the types of treatment inflicted on
them, the social workers were advised not to
confront parents with any information they
gained from children during their interviews
with them. They made this position clear to the
children so as to slowly gain their trust during
the assesment process. The DPJE’s plan was to
gain sufficient first-hand information about the
alledged physical-abuse situation so that any
measure implemented, whether to bring specific
cases to court, to work in collaboration with
parents, or to refer cases for criminal
prosecution, would be convincingly justified.
Whatever the measures ultimately chosen,
Social Services in collaboration with local and
provincial police were conscious of the
heightened risks associated with an intervention
in the context of a closed religious group.
Media Coverage
The final impetus for Social Services to carry
out the interventions planned may have come
from a news report, which aired on a national
French-language television program5 on April
12, 1985. The television broadcast was based
largely on testimonies from former BCW
members who described church followers as
being under the control of Pastor X. His
doctrinal justifications for the use of corporal
punishment were presented, and members were
described as having no choice but to do what the
pastor decided. Two little girls, aged 5 and 7,
and two teenagers were interviewed about the
punishments they had received. The report
5 Le Point, a French-language news program aired on Radio-
Canada.
90 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015

garnered the attention of the provincial press,
and many newspaper articles were published
about the affair. The regional director of DPJE,
who had been interviewed for the news report,
later told the press that about twenty cases
would be presented to Youth Court, stating that
“We are investigating cases of excessive
violence. Beating a child for half an hour on
account of a minor slip-up is not reasonable!”
(Dallaire, 1985).
Issues relating to the school, which was
operating without a permit, qualified teachers, or
approved curriculum, were reported to the
province’s educational board. As well, the
Office Regulating Day-Care Facilities (OSGE6)
was notified concerning the irregular situation of
the group’s day-care facility. Inspectors from the
OSGE attempted to visit the day-care center, but
were denied access. The center ceased its
operations several days later, at which point the
OSGE closed its file.
If the pastor had appeared calm in the face of the
police and of the DPJE investigations, he was
less so in the wake of the television and
newspaper coverage. He ordered that the church
door remain locked at all times, even during
services, so that reporters could not film his
sermons. Furthermore, he left the region,
returning to the church only to lead services
during which he would insult his followers and
call them police informants. Although he had
ordered the suspension of corporal punishment
at the beginning of the investigations, he himself
corrected a few children very severely during
this time. For example, a 6-year-old boy was
beaten three times during religious services in
the course of the same week.
At the beginning of the investigation by Child
Protection Services, BCW members repeated the
accepted church discourse concerning corporal
punishment. However, as the meetings with
social workers progressed and as the evaluation
of their children proceeded, a few distinctive
voices were heard amongst the members. It
seems that, as the DPJE’s general investigation
progressed, the fear of losing custody of their
6 In French, Office des services de garde à l’enfance.
children became real for some parents, leading
them to express different views than those
decreed by Pastor X. Thus, a certain distancing
from the pastor’s teachings began to take place
on the part of some of the BCW members. A
few of them went as far as to leave the church to
show their disaproval of the child-raising
practices they themselves had used until
recently. Other members expressed difficulty in
dealing with the representation of themselves
reflected by the media—that is, as individuals
cut off from society and blindly following their
leader in a subservient manner. Such
confrontations, once the individuals were away
from the influence of the group and of the
leader, led many to question their affiliation with
the BCW. For other members, seeing themselves
through the eyes of others, as they were
portrayed through the media coverage of their
group, brought them to the realization that they
had been under the control of their pastor for a
long time.
Institutional Responses
By December 1985, the DPJE reported 84 cases
of physical abuse. These mainly involved
situations of corporal punishment that were
considered sufficiently severe to compromise the
children’s safety in accordance with Section
38 (e) of the Youth Protection Act. The children
were also deemed to be exposed to extreme
isolation, which compromised their
development, and hence justified that they be
put under the protection of the law. Social
workers were mandated to work with their
parents with the aim of avoiding legal action,
which would have meant deferring their file to
Youth Court. In such cases, both child and
parent are allowed legal representation, as is the
social worker the judge rules according to the
evidence brought before him in accordance with
the Youth Protection Act. An alternative course
consists of parents agreeing to respect measures
aimed at redressing the situation that
compromises the child’s safety or development.
In the case of the BCW children, this meant that
parents had to agree to abandon the use of
corporal punishment and to adopt measures that
favored the social integration of their children.
Such agreements are formalized in what are
called voluntary measures, which are followed
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015 91