Quebec sent Ottawa hospital hundreds of birth alerts despite Ontario ban

Despite the fact that Ontario puta stop tobirth 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 OttawaHospitalreceived 298 birthalerts fromOctober 2020 onward. That was when theprovinceendedthe practice, sayingthe alertsdisproportionately affectIndigenous and other racializedmothers.

All the alertsissuedafter2020 came from Quebec and"were not acted upon," the hospital said.

ButCora McGuire-Cyrette, CEO of the Ontario Native Women's Association, said it's "disheartening to see these numbers."

And an Ottawadoula told CBCthat clients told her they'd experienced birth alerts at the hospital as recently as this year.

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 alertwelfare authorities when the person comes to seek medical care or deliver their baby.

The alertscan leadto newborns being taken from their parents for days, months or even years. Critics have called themunconstitutional and illegal.

The Ontario governmentdirected children's aid societies to stop sending birth alerts to hospitals by Oct. 15, 2020. Years later, on April 14, 2023, the Quebec government announced it wasendingbirth alerts, becoming the last province in Canada to do so.

CBC submitted a freedom of information request to all Ottawa hospitals asking for details on birth alerts they'dreceived from 2010 to 2022.

Queensway Carleton, Montfort, Bruyreand CHEOsaid they kept no records on birth alerts.

The Ottawa Hospitalwas 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 hospitalbetween 2017 and 2022.

In the last three years, from 2020 to 2022, the hospital received 487 including 71last year.

August 2022 was the only month in the past six years thatthe hospital recorded zero birth alerts. It got36 of them in October 2018 the highest number of alertsforany 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 spectrumIndigenous doulain Ottawa, saidshe "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 toldher 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

Louttitgave 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 processcriticizedas inaccessible.

The Ottawa Hospital declined an interview and did not specifically addressCBC's question about Louttit's patients possibly experiencing birth alerts this year.

McGuire-Cyrettewondershow 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.

WATCH | Whatmatters moving forward, according to women's association:

'Racist, colonial, sexist ideologies' must be targeted to end birth alerts, ONWA CEO says

1 year ago

Duration 0:58

Cora McGuire-Cyrette, CEO 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-Cyrettebelieves 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 protectionpartners to stop issuing birth alertsas of March 13, 2023.

She said alerts from Quebec were likely issued forQuebec 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, Nadeausaid.

"It's possible that some of our employeesthere is a lot of turnoverwere not aware of it, so they were still doing it,"Nadeausaid in an interview in French.

In an emailed statement, the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa saidit has not issued any birth alerts since September 2020, aligning with the provincial directive to end them.