In small hamlets, First Nations and Inuit communities across Canada’s north, many pregnant women have little choice but to travel south, far away from home, to give birth. Local care for mothers and babies simply isn’t available.

For decades, Inuit women in the vast area of northern Quebec known as Nunavik faced similar pressures. That was until one pregnant woman refused to get on a plane and go south to deliver her baby. Her act of resistance ignited a sea-change, and in 1986 the community of Puvirnituq opened the first midwifery clinic in the North. 

On this week's Storylines, Duncan McCue takes us to Puvirnituq, to bring us the story behind that clinic, and meet the midwives who serve their own community.

Hands of a Midwife

A weekly documentary show for people who love narrative podcasts. These are stories you can’t stop thinking about. That you’ll tell your friends about. And that will help you understand what’s going on in Canada, and why. Every week a journalist follows one story, meets the people at its centre, and makes it make sense. Sometimes it’s about people living out the headlines in real life. Sometimes it’s about someone you’ve never heard of, living through something you had no idea was happening. Either way, you’ll go somewhere, meet someone, get the context, and learn something new. (Plus it sounds really good. Mixed like a movie.) One story, well told, every week, from the award-winning team at the CBC Audio Doc Unit.

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When Julia Pagel was seven months pregnant, she and her husband faced all the usual new parent decisions: making a birth plan, deciding which stroller to buy and whether to use reusable or disposable diapers.  
 However, there was one choice that was extra tricky for the two of them. What would their child's last name be? Should they just go along with standard practice of giving the baby the father’s last name?  
 The tradition of giving the dad’s name to the child didn’t sit right with Julia, but her husband had come to Canada from Serbia as a 9-year-old, and his last name meant a lot to him. So Julia set out on a mission, to see how others had managed this last name quandary. 
 The documentary was reported by Julia Pagel and story editing by Karen Levine.   Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

The great baby last name debate

On May 1st the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will begin commercial operations.  
 It marks the end of a 12 year saga that included protests, legal challenges and the purchase of the pipeline itself by the federal government.  
 When Ottawa stepped in to buy TMX six years ago, it had an estimated price tag of $7.4 billion dollars. Today the cost has grown to $34 billion dollars.  
 As the polarizing project nears the finish line, CBC producer Allison Dempster visits communities along the pipeline route, from Edson, Alberta to Burnaby, B.C. She meets people who worked on the project, people who campaigned against it and Indigenous leaders who one day hope to own it.  
 In the second half of the show, we join Anna Maria Tremonti on a road trip she took along the route back in 2019. She hears from Western Canadians deeply divided on the pipeline project.  
 As you’ll hear, the expansion is almost complete, but the debate over its legacy is far from over. 
 Reported by Allison Dempster. Produced by Jennifer Chevalier. 
 Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit 

The story of the Trans Mountain pipeline

Mary Kajumba needed money to make a better life for her daughter. So, with the help of a placement agency she left her home in Uganda, and went to Iraq where she got a job as a restaurant cleaner. It wasn’t long after she realised she was in trouble. Mary says she found herself working 18 hour days, sharing cramped accommodation with 30 other workers and never getting paid.  
 But then, help came from an unexpected place. Voice memos, from a man in Vancouver who was working for an anti trafficking organisation.  
 This week on Storylines freelance journalist Jazzmin Jiwa brings us Mary’s story. We follow Mary as she tries to break free from the shackles of human trafficking and forced labour with the help of an NGO.  
 Stories like Mary’s can be found across the Middle East, where workers from sub-Saharan Africa are trafficked, transported, threatened and forced to work for little to no wages. They find themselves working as cleaners and domestic servants, after landing jobs through recruitment agencies that don’t ask many questions about working conditions. 
 Reported by Jazzmin Jiwa. Produced by John Chipman. Story Editing by Julia Pagel and Liz Hoath. This documentary was supported by the Pulitzer Center. 
 Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

Finding freedom: Breaking the bonds of human trafficking

Over the past near-century, Academy Award categories have come and gone. In the silent film era there was an award for Best Title Writing. You know, the written cards that summarized the “dialogue”? Oscar worthy.  
 This year’s 96th Academy Awards broadcast saw Oscars handed out in a whopping 23 different categories, from the big wins like Best Picture, to awards for behind-the-scenes expertise in costuming and score. But one group of people thinks there should be yet another added to that list: best stunts.  
 Stunt actors are real life action heroes behind the biggest movies, but it’s unlikely we know their names and faces, at least not if they’re doing their jobs right. They risk life and limb to bring films to life. The chariot race in Ben-Hur? The entire Fast and Furious franchise? None of them would be possible without stunt coordinators and performers.  
 On this week's Storylines, Joan Webber tells the story of a decades-long effort to get stunt workers their Oscar due. 
 Produced by Joan Webber. Story editing by Julia Pagel.  
 Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

Missing in Action: the decades-long effort to get stunt workers their Oscar due

On October 23rd, 2023 Bob Hallaert, a man with a history of intimate partner violence, shot and killed Angie Sweeney days after she broke up with him. They’d been together for about three years.  
 What happened that day didn’t just shatter the Sweeney family, it shattered Sault Ste Marie. And many believe what happened to Angie could have been stopped.  
 Intimate Partner Violence is at a record high in Canada. On average, a woman is killed by an intimate partner every six days in this country. After a man killed three women in Renfrew County, Ontario in 2015, a month-long inquest made 86 recommendations to end intimate partner violence.  
 The recommendations spanned everything from ways to improve the justice system, the criminal code, early interventions for victims and perpetrators, more and better resources for those in danger, and better police and public education. 
 The first recommendation was to declare IPV an epidemic, which so far the Ontario and Federal governments have refused to do.  
 On this week's Storylines, journalist Katie Nicholson heads to Sault Ste Marie where Angie’s friends, family, and community have come together to grieve, but also to act.     
 Reported by Katie Nicholson. Produced by Acey Rowe. Story editing by Julia Pagel and Liz Hoath.  
 Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit 


Hands of a Midwife

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