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 – RCMP say a second suspect has been arrested in the killing of an Alberta county worker.
Mounties say 28-year-old Elijah Strawberry was taken into custody Friday at a house on O’Chiese First Nation.
Colin Hough, a worker with Rocky View County, was shot and killed while on the job on a rural road east of Calgary on Aug. 6.
Another man who worked for Fortis Alberta was shot and wounded, and RCMP said the suspects fled in a Rocky View County work truck.
Police later arrested Arthur Wayne Penner, 35, and charged him with first-degree murder and attempted murder, and a warrant was issued for Strawberry’s arrest.
RCMP also said there was a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Strawberry, describing him as armed and dangerous.
Chief Supt. Roberta McKale, told a news conference in Edmonton that officers had received tips and information over the last few weeks.
“I don’t know of many members that when were stopped, fuelling up our vehicles, we weren’t keeping an eye out, looking for him,” she said.
But officers had been investigating other cases when they found Strawberry.
“Our investigators were in O’Chiese First Nation at a residence on another matter and the major crimes unit was there working another file and ended up locating him hiding in the residence,” McKale said.
While an investigation is still underway, RCMP say they’re confident both suspects in the case are in police custody.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
RICHMOND, B.C. – The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says the 26-year-old son of a man found dead on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast has been charged with his murder.
Police say 58-year-old Henry Doyle was found badly injured on a forest service road in Egmont last September and died of his injuries.
The homicide team took over when the BC Coroners Service said the man’s death was suspicious.
It says in a statement that the BC Prosecution Service has approved one count of first-degree murder against the man’s son, Jackson Doyle.
Police say the accused will remain in custody until at least his next court appearance.
The homicide team says investigators remained committed to solving the case with the help of the community of Egmont, the RCMP on the Sunshine Coast and in Richmond, and the Vancouver Police Department.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, have broken off without an agreement following 15 hours of talks.
Joe McCann, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they stayed at the bargaining table with help from a mediator until 2 a.m. Friday and made “some progress.”
However, he says the union negotiators didn’t get an offer that they could recommend to the membership.
McCann says that in some ways they are close to an agreement, but in other areas they are “miles apart.”
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people who can’t navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last week, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
McCann asks HandyDART users to be “patient,” since they are trying to get not only a fair contract for workers but also a better service for customers.
He says it’s unclear when the talks will resume, but he hopes next week at the latest.
The employer, Transdev, didn’t reply to an interview request before publication.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
