Family of newborn seized in a Winnipeg hospital hopes to be reunited with the baby

The family of the newborn who was taken from the mother by child welfare services and police in a Winnipeg hospital last week is hopeful the baby will be returned soon. A Facebook livestream of the apprehension garnered hundreds of thousands of views and prompted outcry toward a system where the vast majority of children taken into care by the government are Indigenous.

The newborn's family members, who cannot be identified due to privacy rules around child welfare cases, said in a statement released on Tuesday on their behalf that they had attended the first court appearance in the matter and have had one visit with the baby girl.

“The mother hopes she will know about a specific date for her baby to be reunifed with family tomorrow, January 16, 2019,” said the statement, issued by the First Nations Family Advocate Office. It quotes the mother as saying, “I am doing everything that CFS is asking of me to ensure the return of my baby to my family.”

The livestream, taken by the mother’s uncle, showed a traumatic scene of the mother rocking her baby in a yellow onesie on her hospital bed. Surrounded by other family members, they wept and pleaded for more time with the child, who was eventually placed in a car seat and taken away by Winnipeg police officers.

In a news conference last Friday, the family said a CFS worker accused the mother of being intoxicated upon arrival at the hospital. The family said that wasn't true. The mother said she had previously sought help for her addictions. She and her family were under the impression they had reached an agreement for the guardianship of the baby to be transferred to the mother’s aunt after the birth.

“We are disappointed these were not followed but we are pursuing our goal to have my newborn baby placed in the care of my auntie as soon as possible,” the mother says in the statement released on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for CFS in Manitoba told VICE News it would not confirm any details. “Unfortunately, we cannot comment on the specifics of the case due to confidentiality under the Manitoba Child and Family Services Act,” the spokesperson wrote in an email on Tuesday.

In an email last week, Debbie Besant, CEO of General Child and Family Services Authority in Manitoba, wrote that "apprehending a child is a very difficult decision, and is done only as a last resort and when required to ensure children are kept safe."

"I have personally reviewed this file in detail and met with the agency staff involved," she continued. "I am confident in the decisions made."

Manitoba has one of the highest rates of child apprehension among Western nations. There are more than 10,000 children in care, according to the most recent Manitoba child and family services annual report, 90 percent of whom are Indigenous.

In the wake of the livestream of the apprehension, the First Nations family advocate’s office has seen a surge in requests for help, the CBC reported this week.

"I think, you know, what happened to that family is really tragic, but what they did was really powerful and important, because what they did by sharing their story and their experience on social media was that it legitimized the feelings of all these families,” Cora Morgan, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs’ First Nations family advocate, told the news outlet.

"It triggered some of our families who had been through the same thing. So it was really tough on a lot of people, but I think that is very helpful."

The federal government is expected to table legislation at the end of the month that would reform the child welfare system and hand control over to Indigenous governments.

Cover image: screenshot of mother before her baby is apprehended, via Facebook video.