Manitoba’s Minister of Families has announced a significant drop in the number of babies caught by social services since the province ended the controversial practice of birth alerts, but government data show that hundreds of babies are still being cared for every day. year.
“We have reduced party arrests by 75 percent since this policy was implemented,” Rochelle Squires said during question period on Tuesday.
Data obtained by The Canadian Press through Freedom of Information requests show, on average, that a baby is still caught in Manitoba almost every day.
Birth alerts were used to notify hospitals and child welfare agencies that a more thorough assessment was needed before a newborn was discharged from a parent considered high risk.
The province stopped the practice in 2020 after a review found it discouraged pregnant women and their families from seeking prenatal support.
The province clarified the minister’s numbers later in the week. He said there had been a decrease in newborn apprehensions, but that was not what the minister reported. There were 101 babies up to three days old confiscated in 2020-21, a 46% decrease from the 186 newborns of the previous year.
The province said the minister had included children up to one year old who had been cared for.
Data obtained by the news agency show that there has been a gradual decrease in the arrests of infants under one year of age, but this does not coincide with what the minister said.
In 2019, 496 babies were arrested. That dropped to 386 babies the following year when birth alerts ended. 339 were arrested last year.
This is a decrease of 32% compared to the year before and after the cessation of birth alerts.
The minister’s office also clarified that the arrests of newborns have fallen by 65% since the Progressive Conservatives took office in 2016. And, he said in an email, a 75% reduction is expected this year. .
“It’s an astonishing number of babies being arrested,” said Cora Morgan, a First Nations family advocate for the Manitoba Assembly of Chiefs.
Morgan said ending the birth alerts was the right step.
The practice has long been criticized by indigenous leaders who say birth alerts are piling up against families. The final report of the National Survey on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls said the alerts were “racist and discriminatory and a serious violation of the rights of the child, mother and community.”
There are about 10,000 children in Manitoba and about 90% are Indigenous.
Morgan said it was clear that ending birth alerts did not stop babies from being confiscated. She said mothers still tell her that they are afraid of receiving prenatal support and that she hears about babies and children being regularly detained.
“I still think they’re still marking mothers.”
The province needs to do more to support women who are pregnant or have just given birth to keep families together, Morgan said.
Squires told the legislature that “a lot of damage has been done over decades” around child welfare. He said all levels of government must move forward together.
Bernadette Smith, a member of the opposition NDP legislature, said babies should not be caught unless there is a threat to the child.
“We do more harm than good by detaining children,” he said.
Smith agrees that ending birth alerts was a good decision. But, he noted, it means the number of babies being cared for should have been closer to zero.
A bill Smith introduced in 2018 amended the province’s care laws so that no child could be captured just because of poverty. Smith explained that when she was a teenager she was placed in foster care because her mother could not afford the support she needed.
With more than 300 babies caught a year, it is clear there are other families in need of help, he said.
“Mothers should receive support before, during and after having their children.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 4, 2022.