Yr ending Mar 1964: 559 females imprisoned at Mercer—293 single, 266 married. Though framed as addressing a “child in need of protection,” the Ontario Child Welfare Act disproportionately impacted single mothers, effectively treating sole caregiving as grounds for child removal.

In 1953, my teenage mother spent weeks in what was known as the “dungeon” at the Andrew Mercer Reformatory as punishment for escaping. A decade for Tona Mills is deeply distressing; it’s hard to grasp that those in authority allowed her and others to be subjected to such inhumane and cruel TORTURE.

New book on Ireland’s Catholic-run institutions that imprisoned thousands of women and girls. In Canada, meanwhile, records are blocked by federal & provincial laws. It raises a haunting question: what happened to the babies born in our Magdalene asylums? www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

Our 2025 Annual Report to Parliament is now available! After a year that presented Canada with some of the most significant challenges in our nation’s history, it is clear that respect for human rights must be one of the core values we fight for, together. (1/2)

Eugenic ideology shaped laws, abusive institutions, and forced sterilization. Today, federal and provincial disclosure laws still hide the experiences of women and girls in Canada labeled “incorrigible,” blocking access to records. The U. S. #Incorrigibles Ry Marcattilio-McCracken 👇

🧵Canada Must Confront the Legacy of Forced Adoptions of Babies Born to Unmarried Mothers in Maternity Homes 1/4 🥚

🥚"... Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho said the country’s past adoptions amounted to “forced child trafficking” and that the government will largely refrain from appealing rulings in cases brought by victims seeking compensation for government wrongdoing"

In 1939, Demerson was just 18 years old, when a love story with her Chinese boyfriend Harry Yip turned tragic. Her father, outraged that she would marry a Chinese man, had her arrested & put in jail for one year for being Incorrigible under the Ontario Female Refuges Act. vimeo.com/254147984/ec...

🧵Torture at the Ontario Training School for Girls: a 12-year-old brutally abused for 92 days—then incarcerated in the Mercer Reformatory. Two snippets from the Toronto Star. 👇1/2

Must-read on the class action at the “House of Horrors” in B.C. & the overrepresentation of Indigenous girls 👇 Note: in Ontario, “incorrigible” girls who escaped training schools were committed to the Mercer Reformatory. www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/ar...

Child welfare authorities had incredible powers over young girls. As guardians, they could swiftly incarcerate them at the Mercer Reformatory as “incorrigible.” Decisions, including taking children from mothers, went unchecked, and records remain unobtainable. norma.lexum.com/ipc-cipvp/or...

Cody of Houle Fine Art’s grandmother, Cecile, survived residential schools but faced further injustice—jailed at Mercer while her children were taken in the Sixties Scoop. She died soon after release; her children never knew. instagram.com/p/DFQqTzuS9qe/ facebook.com/profile.php?...

At 1155 King Street West, now home to Lamport Stadium, once stood the Mercer Reformatory, a grim institution founded in 1880 to “reform” so-called “wretched” women. @prisonadoptee.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCbA...

Lecture on those labelled “disabled,” including a discussion on Auxiliary Classes. Many women and girls had been subjected to eugenics-influenced segregated classes in childhood before their imprisonment at Mercer. More here: ccie.educ.ubc.ca/watch-naviga... www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAOp...

"...young people – especially working-class, racialized, and those labelled ‘sexually precocious’ – experienced unprecedented intervention from police in the name of protection, prevention, and discipline." Read more here: ccie.educ.ubc.ca/watch-morali... www.youtube.com/watch?v=IScs...

The government says proposed changes to Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) will modernize the law, protect privacy, and enhance security. The facts tell a different story. Read the full statement: www.ipc.on.ca/en/media-cen...

B.C. school for girls known as 'house of horror' subject of class-action lawsuit Lawsuit seeking damages for sexual, physical, mental abuse against girls, many Indigenous, jailed between 1914 and 1973, can proceed vancouversun.com/news/bc-girl...

🥚Prisoner of the State: Unlawfully Arrested, Illegally Detained, a Punishment to Last a Lifetime by Lily Arthur (2025). In Canada, adoptees born to mothers detained in institutions remain hidden behind disclosure laws that obscure the truth of their carceral births. www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFLW...

In a new statement, Commissioner Patricia Kosseim warns that proposed changes to Ontario's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act would seriously weaken privacy protections, transparency, reduce independent oversight and put Ontarians’ personal information at greater risk.

Statement from Commissioner Patricia Kosseim on proposed changes to Ontario's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act www.newswire.ca/news-release...

International tribunal to hear case of missing Indigenous children in Canada - David Suzuki Foundation davidsuzuki.org/story/intern... 🥚

🥚There has been no federal apology or inquiry to date regarding the 60s Scoop in Canada. Read more at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation here nctr.ca/uncategorize... @moonlyfe.bsky.social

🚨 @niigaanwewidam.bsky.social and I - along with a dream team of incredible collaborators - are excited to announce a new book challenging residential school denialism! Truth Before Reconciliation will be released in September with the University of Manitoba Press: uofmpress.ca/books/truth-...

Queen’s Law Professor Lisa Kelly presented a talk, "The Unfinished Revolution in Youth Justice," examining the history of youth laws in Canada, recent reforms, and what the youth experience can teach us about creating a more humane legal system. Watch: bit.ly/4u71avK

🧵One story—and face—of 20,000+ “criminals” at Mercer: records show 8 incarcerations and a brutal attempted murder—left in a field to die. She survived 5 skull fractures, a lost finger, a broken arm—and was still sent back to Mercer.

cPTSD is common in #SixtiesScoop adoptees and survivors of child welfare. More health supports are needed to treat our #adoption and relational racism trauma now 🥚 www.erudit.org/en/journals/...

What is true today was true decades ago. For adoptees seeking records, provincial & federal disclosure laws still hide whether their “juvenile delinquent” mothers were jailed at Mercer, Training Schools, or maternity homes—and even who their fathers were. www.justiceforgirls.org/issues/crimi...

Women with intellectual & developmental disabilities were criminalized & jailed at Mercer or asylums (1880–1969), often repeatedly. Today, this persists in new forms, causing trauma & loss of safety, security & dignity. More here: www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/poli...

The Mercer, asylums & maternity homes confined women & girls fleeing all forms of abuse. Many were imprisoned for shocking reasons. CAS controlled their children—rarely returned. #IWD2026 Hidden histories of shame, blame & fear, obscured by the CYFSA & YCJA. www.facebook.com/reel/1641126...

Criminalized as a “juvenile delinquent,” a girl could be returned to court under the JDA until age 21—many while pregnant, subsequently incarcerated in maternity homes, asylums, & Mercer. For adoptees of all races, these carceral birth origins remain hidden behind the YCJA & CYFSA.👇

Criminalized as a “juvenile delinquent,” a girl could be returned to court under the JDA until age 21—many while pregnant, subsequently incarcerated in maternity homes, asylums, & Mercer. For adoptees of all races, these carceral birth origins remain hidden behind the YCJA & CYFSA.👇

Closes today March 5, 2026, at 3:16 p.m. (EDT) www.cbc.ca/news/indigen...

🥚Where did the babies placed for adoption come from? The maternity home scandal, not yet fully told, and the girls at Mercer Reformatory expose a hidden history of state control, confinement, and forced adoption—shielded behind the YCJA and the CFSA.

Once committed to a training school, a girl remained a ward until age 21—later reduced to 18. Under constant scrutiny and control, many who became pregnant were later incarcerated in maternity homes or at Mercer. For adoptees, their mothers’ histories remain hidden behind the CYFSA and the YCJA.

Proposed $60 Million Settlement for Former Residents of Ontario Training Schools www.newswire.ca/news-release...

These girls were erased and hidden from society—and still are, their records locked behind youth disclosure laws. The true story of maternity homes remains untold.

🧵Where did the money come from? The witness fumbles her way through the question but does admit it came from girls from families of significant means and from the provincial government. But why the provincial government if families were paying? See next thread. 1/2 🥚

🥚The maternity home scandal & adoption are far more complex than many realize. Too often, the story is told by those whose families had significant means—not by those who were criminalized or wards of CAS or OTS. The most marginalized voices remain unheard under CYFSA and YCJA. More coming soon.

🥚Reading Criminalized Mothers, Criminalizing Mothering. In my experience, most women incarcerated at the Mercer Reformatory lost their children to adoption. Alarming: youth disclosure laws bar info to adoptees if their mother was criminalized under 18. #HiddenHistories

From 1880–1969, many women and girls who had already experienced 𝐍𝐨𝐧-𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 were still criminalized and incarcerated at Mercer, only to be released back into the conditions they had endured. #Prostitution Learn more about #NST here: nonstatetorture.org/what-is-nst/...

Lecture: Prison Born: Understanding Colonial Racism according to a Systems Theory of Law Speaker: Robin Hansen, associate professor, USask Law Date: September 23, 2024 at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNzs...

🥚The Child Welfare Act, 1965 provides that the Children's Aid Society gains temporary or permanent custody of a child when a parent is imprisoned. In the year ending March 1964, 559 women and girls were imprisoned in Mercer; once CAS took custody, it was often difficult for mothers to regain it.

🥚Criminalize & disappear a mother to make it look like a no show for a court hearing regarding her child • your mom had been...charged with being intoxicated... went to Fort Saskatchewan jail for two months • that’s why there was a two month period we didn’t hear from her www.nfb.ca/film/foster_...

🧵🥚Want to hear an unbelievable story? Let us tell you Velma’s. Many pregnant women and girls, like Velma, were incarcerated under the Female Refuges Act in institutions such as industrial refuges, the Andrew Mercer Reformatory, and even maternity homes. Full story in thread. 1/2 vimeo.com/728649147

Economic ideology of the child-saving movement: women’s reformatories & prisons functioned as institutional pipelines within a system that controlled, institutionalized, and redirected labor & lives, including using their children as a supply for the placing-out system. 🥚 archive.org/details/proc...

Unique to Ontario was the Female Refuges Act, which unjustly incarcerated females 15–35. This overview (with errors) is a starting point. Missing is the plight of Indigenous women, including the forced adoption of their children. #Incorrigible grokipedia.com/page/female_...

History shows that when children are transferred—through placing-out or adoption—abuse follows. Orphan Trains, British Home Children, Convict Orphans… what about kids of incarcerated women in Canada? No one has studied this. Hidden history!!🥚 www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/...

1953: Members of the Legislature made a surprise visit to Mercer and praised it, even touring the “hole.” Less than three weeks later, my mother—newly confined in the Ontario Training School wing—escaped with three other “incorrigibles.”👇🥚1/2 Source: The Globe and Mail, May 23, 1953 ·Page 5

Thread 🧵 Although Velma Demerson eventually received compensation, her case stands as an exception rather than evidence of systemic accountability. 1/6 www.ola.org/en/legislati...