By David P. Ball
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A growing number of First Nations in British Columbia and beyond are ramping up their urgent demands for control over the welfare of their own children, particularly after numerous reports of "birth alerts" surfaced in the media this year.

A birth alert is the longstanding practice of social workers being alerted to an Indigenous mother going into labour so they can seize the newborn baby from her as soon as it is born. Sometimes, hospital staff alert children's ministries.

The issue sparked controversy after recent media reports, including an investigation by IndigiNews' reporter Anna McKenzie, who told The Pulse on CFRO the issue has deep personal impact for her not only as a child welfare reporter, but as an young Indigenous mother herself.

But her attempt to get information released by the government of B.C. about what it knew of the practice — before banning it, at least on paper, last year — hit a wall when the province gave her documents revealing the government's own lawyers suggested the practice could be unconstitutional.

McKenziw said the government demand the documents back and attempted to suppress IndigiNews' publication. After consulting with a lawyer, McKenzie said the Indigenous-run outlet refused to back down and published the exposé in the public interest.

The provincial children's ministry said in a statement that it would not tell parents if they had been subject to birth alerts in the past, because it wants to look "forward" not back in time, out of concern for "retraumatizing" parents. McKenzie called that explanation, "problematic."

She said now more First Nations are stepping forward to join the few who already negotiated self-determination over their own child welfare systems in B.C.