My motivation in compiling this list was to find Canadian resources for participants in my birth doula workshop.
As a white Canadian, I tend to minimize the effects of racism within our institutions. American or British resources do not help me confront these issues, because I can reassure myself that “it’s not so bad here.” So I set out to find specifically Canadian resources to help me come face to face with the racist past and present of our country. I wanted to focus on health care, and particularly perinatal care, because these are the issues I am called to work on in my profession as a doula, childbirth educator, and doula trainer.
I have only included items that can be freely and easliy accessed (no scholarly article behind pay-walls), and I have chosen shorter items, because they are more likely to get read!
I welcome comments about anything from this list that you watch/read. This list is not final – I hope to continue to add to it and update it. I welcome contributions to the list, if you know of articles or videos you would like to share. Send them along!
Eva Bild, CD(DONA) BDT(DONA) LCCE
Victoria, BC
eva@motheringtouch.ca
Institutional/Systemic Racism in Hospitals in Canada
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IPeoples/EMRIP/Health/UniversityManitoba.pdf
Episode from CBC radio – White Coat Black Art: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/i-am-a-white-settler-why-that-matters-in-health-care-1.4545454/it-s-the-hardest-conversation-we-can-have-confronting-racism-in-health-care-1.4545477
https://portal.cfpc.ca/ResourcesDocs/uploadedFiles/Resources/_PDFs/SystemicRacism_ENG.pdf
Indian Hospitals (This is the term that was used for these now historical institutions.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUOuUo79zU8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLiyhvZTXXo
https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/a-brief-look-at-indian-hospitals-in-canada-0
https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/books/separate-beds
Perinatal Care – Indigenous Families
https://www.nccih.ca/docs/health/FS-AboriginalMaternalHealth-Smylie-EN.pdf
https://www.jogc.com/article/S1701-2163(16)34325-0/pdf
https://openpress.usask.ca/northernhealthcare/chapter/chapter-5-indigenous-birth/
Forced Sterilization – Canada
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aasDnMQcSvI
Perinatal Care – Black Canadians
https://www.chatelaine.com/living/black-birthing-experience-canada/
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/black-maternal-health-canada_ca_5ed90ae3c5b685164f2eab93
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738399118309601?via%3Dihub
https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/black-women-canada-higher-risk-preterm-births-256639
Anti-Black Racism in Canada – History
“Anti-Black racism is a particularly pernicious, borderless, and unique form of racism that has its roots in the Transatlantic slave trade. Slavery evolved into what Saidiya Hartman terms the “afterlife of slavery,” the modern-day, virulent, enduring forms of structural racial injustice and the different forms of structural inequalities that African descended people here in Canada and in other parts of the world continue to experience today.”
Anti-Black Racism Reading List
https://onesearch.library.utoronto.ca/anti-black-racism-reading-list
Webinars
From the Canadian Public Health Association: Transforming our Response: Practical Tips on Providing Trauma Informed, Culturally Safe Care
Part 1 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lttfFKqT3yQ&feature=youtu.be
Part 2 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVcg5-DH9mk
Part 3 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em3Gc4ggO2c
Indigenous Cultural Safety Collaborative Learning Series
http://www.icscollaborative.com/webinars
San’yas Indigenous Cultural Safety Training
This course costs $300 for anyone who is not employed by a BC health authority. But it is very highly recommended.
http://www.sanyas.ca/training/british-columbia/core-ics-health