One spring afternoon in 2016, I received a call at my university office from a woman who has chosen to be called Jacquie here. She knew that I was a law professor, and she was seeking help in a deeply troubling situation. Jacquie, an Indigenous woman from a Treaty 6 First Nation with close family ties to a Metis community, was in her third trimester of pregnancy and very concerned about the welfare of her child. He was due to be born in several weeks and was to be automatically separated from her by the prison system—at birth, against her strong wishes and against contemporary medical and developmental knowledge. Jacquie was incarcerated at the Pine Grove Correctional Centre in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and she could not afford a lawyer and had no legal representation. When she called me, Jacquie was weeks away from being forced to abandon her newborn.
The Saskatchewan Ministry of Justice, according to its website, “provides a fair justice system that upholds the law and protects the rights of all individuals in Saskatchewan.” What was about to happen to Jacquie’s unborn son, however, was neither just nor fair. Not one state actor—such as a judge or social worker—had directly considered his interests during Jacquie’s sentencing; he was, at that time, not yet born and, by Canadian law, not yet a legal person. However, there would be no consideration of his interests after his birth either. Instead, he would be automatically removed from his mother’s care according to Pine Grove Correctional Centre’s policy. This was the same policy that had been applied for decades in Saskatchewan and in most of Canada.
