Jennifer McPhee
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 02/02) - While recovering in the delivery room an hour after 23-year-old Samantha Peter gave birth, two social workers and two RCMP officers entered the room and told her they were taking her baby girl away.

It came as a shock to Peter. Just a month before, the same two social workers visited her at the women's centre and told her they would support her by giving her diapers and whatever else she needed.

But at the hospital, they treated her "like she was nothing" and apprehended her baby at the end of her stay in the hospital. Mother and daughter were only reunited following a court battle months later.

Peter said she felt "betrayed" and cried for hours that day in the hospital.

"Everything is OK now," she said while feeding her baby. "Now we have lots of time together."

It's obvious Peter loves her daughter. She chats with pride about how she is already starting to talk, and worries about her daughter's allergies.

But she does have a criminal record and admits her past is not exactly spotless. In fact, she gave birth to her child while serving a five-month sentence.

"I've had problems in the past, but I've resolved most of those," said Peter. "I'm a good mom. I just love my baby."

Inmates who give birth usually keep their babies with them, said her lawyer, Betty Lou McIlmoyle.

According to the Department of Justice, keeping mother and baby together in prison depends on health, safety and security concerns and is just one of several options.

In this case, Peter's baby was put in a foster home with about 12 other children.

This wasn't the first time social workers have arrived in the delivery room wanting to apprehend a child, according to Peter's lawyers. In another instance this year, social workers came to the hospital, treated the mother like she didn't exist and tried to take the baby.

"There was no indication the child needed protection," said lawyer James Brydon.

Not told of legal rights

In the end, they didn't even have the grounds to take the child. In both cases, said the lawyers, the women didn't know the apprehension attempt was coming and were not told they have a right to legal counsel.

Lawyer James Brydon calls social workers strolling into delivery rooms "an extreme breach of privacy."

"I wonder about the propriety of police and social workers in the delivery room," he continues. "I mean, mom isn't going anywhere."

Both lawyers said the women's rights were violated. In Peter's case, the jail released confidential information to social services.

And the lawyers believe it is unethical of Social Services to ask the hospital to notify them when the baby is born.

"The hospital is going around ratting out their patients," said Brydon. Another thing Social Services doesn't take into consideration, said McIlmoyle: "They don't think people can change."

The Centre for Northern Families advocates for women, often in tough situations.

Centre says it was punished

A report released Wednesday by the centre says the Social Services Department punished them for sticking up for women like Peter by dumping a five-year contract with the centre.

At a hearing last Wednesday to discuss potential changes to the Child and Family Services Act, the centre's executive director, Arlene Hache, compared apprehending children at birth to the "1960s Scoop," when many aboriginal children were removed from their homes and placed in residential schools and foster homes because it was deemed to be in their best interest.

It is widely recognized that the '60s scoop had a disastrous affect on aboriginal families. Perhaps the most damaging consequence: children did not form an attachment with their parents (or sometimes to anyone) in their early years.

And many lost culture, language and parental guidance, and were subjected to physical and sexual abuse at schools.

Changes are "dangerous"

Hache said the department's proposed changes make it easier to apprehend children and believes this is dangerous.

At the hearing, MacKenzie Delta MLA David Krutko agreed and said many aboriginal people whose children are taken away just give up. "At the end of the day everything is against you," he said. "Social workers have the upper hand ... all you get is Legal Aid."

Krutko said support programs are needed to reunite children and parents sooner to minimize the damage caused by moving kids from foster home to foster home.

Many apprehended children turn into young offenders and eventually end up in federal prisons, said Krutko.

It's an opinion shared by lawyer James Brydon, who said he believes placing respite care workers into homes, instead of apprehending so many children, is a possible solution.

He pointed out many adopted children feel compelled to meet their birth parents. And although Brydon admitted apprehension is sometimes necessary he believes many children are unnecessarily ripped from their homes.

'Is it really necessary?'

"Is what we are doing really necessary and how much damage is it going to do as compared to the damage it is trying to prevent?" he said. "We're not talking about just two minutes of a person's life. In many cases it's 16 or 18 years of a person's life. What kind of a child do we have at the end of that period?"

"I can show you people in this community brought up in foster care who turned into life-long criminals by it ... We've created our own chamber of horrors."

At a hearing to discuss new legislation, Jane Groenewegen said the issues are too complex and wide-ranging to make broad, sweeping conclusions. She called for legislation and "best practices" that are driven by common sense -- both reasonable and flexible.

"Maybe we need to get creative and think outside the box," she said. "This is a problem of varying degrees. It calls for a variety of solutions."

Groenewegen said apprehension is "sometimes totally appropriate" but agreed the department isn't always the best surrogate parent.

"Sometimes they are taken out of one bad situation and put into another. What's the redeeming situation in that?"

Health ministers comments

Health Minister Michael Miltenberger has 15 years of experience as a child welfare officer. He attended the standing committee meeting but left before it was over. Asked for his opinion about social workers entering delivery rooms, he said he can't discuss specific cases.

"If procedures haven't been followed, then we'd want to make sure the situation is rectified," he said. "But there's always at least two sides to every story."