Montreal-area high school gives students expired condoms

CTV Montreal: Expired condoms A school in Terrebonne gave out condoms to Grade 11 students, but turns out the condoms were expired.

A Montreal-area high school has come under fire for handing out long-expired condoms to a group of students.

“It’s a mistake,” Eric Ladouceur of the Des Affluents School Board told CTV Montreal. “No doubt about that -- it’s a mistake.”

On April 25, as part of an ethics and religion class at Armand-Corbeil Secondary School in Terrebonne, a Montreal suburb, health officials came by to hand out condoms. Some students, however, soon discovered that they had expired in 2015.

Those students took to social media to warn their peers against using them. Over the following two days, the school then sent out emails to students and their parents.

“We reacted very (quickly) to be sure that the students were not using the condoms,” Ladouceur said. “And we don't have any information that students used the wrong condom.”

Health Canada advises against using expired condoms, saying that “their effectiveness cannot be guaranteed.” Planned Parenthood says that “expired condoms are more likely to break, which can result in pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.”

CTV Montreal spoke to one mother whose daughter received an expired condom. The woman was furious, saying that in an attempt to talk about prevention, the school ended up putting kids at risk.

Health officials from Quebec’s Lanaudiere region were responsible for the mishap. They told CTV Montreal that they recently changed where they stored their condoms, and that somehow an old box which should have been thrown out got mixed in with news ones. The problem was not spotted, they say, because only the individual condoms had an expiry date, whereas their box did not. School board officials say that only 20 expired condoms were distributed.

One student, who spoke to CTV Montreal on condition of anonymity, pointed out the irony of the situation.

“They talk about safety, what we should do, should not do, how we should use condoms,” the student said. “And then they give us expired condoms.”

With a report from CTV Montreal’s Rob Lurie