Despite the fact that Ontario put a stop to birth alerts in 2020, Quebec child welfare agencies continued to send hundreds of the controversial notifications — which can be used to threaten to or actually seize newborns from their mothers — to Ottawa’s largest hospital.
According to internal hospital data obtained by CBC News, The Ottawa Hospital received 298 birth alerts from October 2020 onward. That was when the province ended the practice, saying the alerts disproportionately affect Indigenous and other racialized mothers.
All the alerts Quebec issued after 2020 “were not acted upon,” the hospital said.
But Cora McGuire-Cyrette, executive director of the Ontario Native Women’s Association, said it’s “disheartening to see these numbers.”
And an Ottawa doula told CBC that clients told her they’d experienced birth alerts at the hospital as recently as this year.
Gina Louttit, a doula in Ottawa, says she wasn’t surprised by the hospital’s data on birth alerts, citing the experiences of some of her clients in recent years. (Francis Ferland/CBC)
Birth alerts are notifications issued by child welfare agencies to hospitals that target unborn children of pregnant people who they deem “high-risk.” After they’re issued, health-care providers are required to alert welfare authorities when the person comes to seek medical care or deliver their baby.
CBC submitted a freedom of information request to all Ottawa hospitals asking for details on birth alerts they’d received from 2010 to 2022.
Queensway Carleton, Montfort, Bruyère and CHEO said they kept no records on birth alerts.
The Ottawa Hospital was the only institution that kept track of them, and shared the number of alerts they received between 2017 and 2022.
What do the numbers show?
Child welfare agencies issued 1,206 birth alerts to the hospital between 2017 and 2022.
In the last three years, from 2020 to 2022, the hospital received 487 — including 71 last year.
August 2022 was the only month in the past six years that the hospital recorded zero birth alerts. It got 36 of them in October 2018 — the highest number of alerts for any month in the data CBC received.
A footnote states the hospital notified Quebec’s Department of Youth Protection that birth alerts would not be accepted as of November 2022.
In December 2022, the hospital still received nine of them.
Not surprised, says doula
Gina Louttit, a full spectrum Indigenous doula in Ottawa, said she “wasn’t surprised” by the numbers, and that the alerts should stop.
“I had a couple of clients in Ottawa that had experienced it recently in 2023,” Louttit said.
Those clients told her child protection workers visited them shortly after they gave birth at The Ottawa Hospital.
“They felt targeted, they felt unsafe,” she said. “It makes me feel upset … because it’s been going on for years.”
Have you experienced a birth alert in Ottawa? Email priscilla.hwang@cbc.ca
Louttit gave birth to her daughter in June 2018 at another Ottawa hospital, and believes she experienced a birth alert at that time.
Within a few hours, a nurse told her Children’s Aid Society was coming to visit her, she said.
A social worker came and interrogated her, saying she was a young mother at the time, Louttit said.
“I felt very targeted,” she said. “I wasn’t notified it was a birth alert but it felt like it was, just because I was not expecting [the Children’s Aid Society] to show up.”
Louttit said that even after asking her doctor and nurse practitioner to look into it, she never got confirmation.
Birth alerts are often issued unbeknownst to the mother and without evidence of real risk, which means requesting records may be the only way to prove someone’s been targeted by a birth alert — a process criticized as inaccessible.
The Ottawa Hospital declined an interview and did not specifically address CBC’s question about Louttit’s patients possibly experiencing birth alerts this year.
Louttit with a sweetgrass basket that holds a piece of her daughter’s umbilical cord from when she gave birth in 2018. (Francis Ferland/CBC)
McGuire-Cyrette wonders how many more hospitals continued to receive birth alerts across Canada.
During engagements with Indigenous women in the last year, she said she’s heard new mothers continue to navigate a health-care system “that operates in an unacceptable level of violence” against them.
‘Racist, colonial, sexist ideologies’ must be targeted to end birth alerts, ONWA director says
Cora McGuire-Cyrette, executive director of Ontario Native Women’s Association said Indigenous mothers will continue to get “red-flagged” unless investments into “systemic changes” are made.
Though all provinces in Canada have now issued directives to end birth alerts, McGuire-Cyrette believes Indigenous mothers will continue to be “red-flagged.”
“I think it may continue in a new approach, in a new way,” she said.
Workers may issue alerts by habit: director
Colette Nadeau, the director of youth protection for Quebec’s Outaouais region, said the ministry had told its child protection partners to stop issuing birth alerts as of March 13, 2023.
She said alerts from Quebec were likely issued for Quebec residents who decided to give birth in Ontario.
After the Ontario government ended the practice, some Quebec welfare partners may have continued to issue birth alerts, not realizing the practice ended across the border, Nadeau said.
“It’s possible that some of our employees — there is a lot of turnover — were not aware of it, so they were still doing it,” Nadeau said in an interview in French.
In an emailed statement, the Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa said it has not issued any birth alerts since September 2020, aligning with the provincial directive to end them.
EDMONTON – Jake Allen made 31 saves for his second shutout of the season and 26th of his career as the New Jersey Devils closed out their Western Canadian road trip with a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.
Jesper Bratt had a goal and an assist and Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored for the Devils (8-5-2) who have won three of their last four on the heels on a four-game losing skid.
The Oilers (6-6-1) had their modest two-game winning streak snapped.
Calvin Pickard made 13 stops between the pipes for Edmonton.
TAKEAWAYS
Devils: In addition to his goal, Bratt picked up his 12th assist of the young season to give him nine points in his last eight games and now 15 points overall. Nico Hischier remains in the team lead, picking up an assist of his own to give him 16 points for the campaign. He has a point in all but four games this season.
Oilers: Forward Leon Draisaitl was held pointless after recording six points in his previous two games and nine points in his previous four. Draisaitl usually has strong showings against the Devils, coming into the contest with an eight-game point streak against New Jersey and 11 goals in 17 games.
KEY MOMENT
New Jersey took a 2-0 lead on the power play with 3:26 remaining in the second period as Hischier made a nice feed into the slot to Bratt, who wired his third of the season past Pickard.
KEY RETURN?
Oilers star forward and captain Connor McDavid took part in the optional morning skate for the Oilers, leading to hopes that he may be back sooner rather than later. McDavid has been expected to be out for two to three weeks with an ankle injury suffered during the first shift of last Monday’s loss in Columbus.
OILERS DEAL FOR D-MAN
The Oilers have acquired defenceman Ronnie Attard from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenceman Ben Gleason.
The 6-foot-3 Attard has spent the past three season in the Flyers organization seeing action in 29 career games. The 25-year-old right-shot defender and Western Michigan University grad was originally selected by Philadelphia in the third round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Attard will report to the Oilers’ AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.
UP NEXT
Devils: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.
Oilers: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes threw for 291 yards and three touchdowns, and Kareem Hunt pounded into the end zone from two yards out in overtime to give the unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs a 30-24 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night.
DeAndre Hopkins had two touchdown receptions for the Chiefs (8-0), who drove through the rain for two fourth-quarter scores to take a 24-17 lead with 4:17 left. But then Kansas City watched as Baker Mayfield led the Bucs the other way in the final minute, hitting Ryan Miller in the end zone with 27 seconds to go in regulation time.
Tampa Bay (4-5) elected to kick the extra point and force overtime, rather than go for a two-point conversion and the win. And it cost the Buccaneers when Mayfield called tails and the coin flip was heads. Mahomes and the Chiefs took the ball, he was 5-for-5 passing on their drive in overtime, and Hunt finished his 106-yard rushing day with the deciding TD plunge.
Travis Kelce had 14 catches for 100 yards with girlfriend Taylor Swift watching from a suite, and Hopkins finished with eight catches for 86 yards as the Chiefs ran their winning streak to 14 dating to last season. They became the sixth Super Bowl champion to start 8-0 the following season.
Mayfield finished with 200 yards and two TDs passing for the Bucs, who have lost four of their last five.
It was a memorable first half for two players who had been waiting to play in Arrowhead Stadium.
The Bucs’ Rachaad White grew up about 10 minutes away in a tough part of Kansas City, but his family could never afford a ticket for him to see a game. He wound up on a circuitous path through Division II Nebraska-Kearney and a California junior college to Arizona State, where he eventually became of a third-round pick of Tampa Bay in the 2022 draft.
Two year later, White finally got into Arrowhead — and the end zone. He punctuated his seven-yard scoring run in the second quarter, which gave the Bucs a 7-3 lead, by nearly tossing the football into the second deck.
Then it was Hopkins’ turn in his first home game since arriving in Kansas City from a trade with the Titans.
The three-time All-Pro, who already had caught four passes, reeled in a third-down heave from Mahomes amid triple coverage for a 35-yard gain inside the Tampa Bay five-yard line. Three plays later, Mahomes found him in the back of the end zone, and Hopkins celebrated his first TD with the Chiefs with a dance from “Remember the Titans.”
Tampa Bay tried to seize control with consecutive scoring drives to start the second half. The first ended with a TD pass to Cade Otton, the latest tight end to shred the Chiefs, and Chase McLaughlin’s 47-yard field goal gave the Bucs a 17-10 lead.
The Chiefs answered in the fourth quarter. Mahomes marched them through the rain 70 yards for a tying touchdown pass, which he delivered to Samaje Perine while landing awkwardly and tweaking his left ankle, and then threw a laser to Hopkins on third-and-goal from the Buccaneers’ five-yard line to give Kansas City the lead.
Tampa Bay promptly went three-and-out, but its defence got the ball right back, and this time Mayfield calmly led his team down field. His capped the drive with a touchdown throw to Miller — his first career TD catch — with 27 seconds to go, and Tampa Bay elected to play for overtime.
UP NEXT
Buccaneers: Host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Darcy Kuemper made 16 saves for his first shutout of the season and 32nd overall, helping the Los Angeles Kings beat the Nashville Predators 3-0 on Monday night.
Adrian Kempe had a goal and an assist and Anze Kopitar and Kevin Fiala also scored. The Kings have won two of their last three.
Juuse Saros made 24 saves for the Predators. They are 1-2-1 in their last four.
Kopitar opened the scoring with 6:36 remaining in the opening period. Saros denied the Kings captain’s first shot, but Kopitar collected the rebound below the goal line and banked it off the netminder’s skate.
Fiala, a former Predator, made it 2-0 35 seconds into the third.
The Kings held Nashville to just three third-period shots on goal, the first coming with 3:55 remaining and Saros pulled for an extra attacker.
Elsewhere in the NHL on Monday:
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DEVILS 3 OILERS 0
EDMONTON, Alta. (AP) — Jake Allen made 31 saves for his second shutout of the season and 26th of his NHL career, helping the New Jersey Devils close their western Canadian road trip with a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers.
Jesper Bratt had a goal and an assist and Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored. The Devils improved to 8-5-2. They have won three of their last four after a four-game skid.
Calvin Pickard made 13 saves for Edmonton. The Oilers had won two straight.
