Roles and mandates

An institution you can trust

The Québec Ombudsman has been Québec’s ombudsman since 1969. It is independent and impartial and is not a Government of Québec organization. It reports to the National Assembly.

Our mission:

  1. See to it that citizens’ rights are upheld when citizens interact with Québec public services.
  2. See to the integrity of public services and be part of the action to improve them.

We handle:

YOUR COMPLAINTS AND REPORTS

We intervene every day to prevent or correct breaches of rights, abuse, negligence, inaction or errors that affect citizens in their dealings with:

See File a complaint.

YOUR PUBLIC INTEGRITY DISCLOSURES

We handle confidentially:

Under certain conditions, the Québec Ombudsman can provide financial assistance so you can obtain legal advice from the attorney of your choice.

See Whistleblowers.

The Québec Ombudsman is not your attorney.
When we examine a complaint or report, we listen to all the parties concerned and carry out rigorous and objective investigations. 
If we see that something is wrong, we transmit our recommendations to the authority concerned so that it can correct the situation as quickly as possible.
For public service complaints, we cannot intervene if a case concerning the same facts or events is before the Court of Québec or Québec Superior Court.
We cannot have a court decision overturned. 
The Québec Ombudsman is an alternative to the courts. If you contact us first, often we can prevent long and costly legal proceedings.

Our other mandates

Simple, free, effective recourse

Our services are free, confidential, and available to everyone.

Every year we receive more than 20,000 complaints, reports, disclosures and requests for information. Your personal information is always protected. Only the people authorized to access it because of their job can do so.

Even though the Québec Ombudsman has no authority to enforce its recommendations, more than 98% of them are approved.