B.C. ‘childbirth activist’ loses bid to remove investigator from midwifery case

Gloria Lemay is seen in a Facebook image.

A British Columbia woman who is under investigation by police and the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives for her alleged role in the birth and death of a newborn child, has lost her bid to have the college’s lead investigator removed from the case.

Gloria Lemay, who was arrested and charged with manslaughter earlier this year, had petitioned the B.C. Supreme Court to remove JT Michaelis Beck, the college’s lead investigator and lawyer, from the legal proceedings after Lemay accused Beck of seizing a box containing privileged communications between Lemay and her lawyer from her home during a search last year.

Lemay, who was 77 years old at the time of her arrest in January, had already been the subject of repeated investigations by the college, which is the body that certifies and regulates midwives in B.C.

• Read more: B.C. ‘childbirth activist’ charged with manslaughter after newborn’s death

By law, only those who are registered with the college are allowed to practise midwifery or call themselves midwives in the province. Lemay, who has described herself as a “childbirth activist,” has never been registered as a midwife, according to the agency.

In February 2000, the college obtained a permanent injunction barring Lemay from performing midwife services.

Two years later, she was found in criminal contempt of court for breaching the injunction and was sentenced to five months in jail.

Death of a newborn

That seemed to resolve the matter for more than two decades, until Jan. 6, 2024, when a newborn baby died in hospital following a home birth in the Vancouver Island community of Ladysmith.

The incident triggered separate investigations by the RCMP and the regulator, with each agency obtaining a separate authorization to search Lemay’s home and property later that month.

Mounties entered Lemay’s home first on Jan. 30 of last year, escorting her outside while Beck, serving as the regulator’s legal counsel, helped the police identify equipment, medication and documents related to midwifery, according to court documents.

Less than three hours later, the police search concluded and Beck re-entered the home alongside private investigators employed by Paladin Risk Solutions, who were hired by the college to help with its investigation.

• Read more: Regulator searches home of B.C. ‘childbirth activist’

Together, Beck and the investigators searched and seized items on behalf of the college, including the box of documents at the heart of Lemay’s legal challenge.

In an affidavit before the court, Beck described the box as containing “news clippings and ‘public‑facing’ mementoes from Ms. Lemay’s prior legal proceedings,” saying the investigator believed the box “may have client charts and medical records.”

Nearing the end of the search, Beck, who uses they/them pronouns, became concerned they would miss their ferry reservation back to the mainland, so the lawyer removed the entire box from the home so it could be thoroughly searched later, the court heard.

The box was returned to Lemay two months later, with only a single document – a letter from someone named “Allison” – having been scanned and retained for the investigation, the college attested.

‘Sloppy investigative work’

Lemay applied for a stay of proceedings in the case, alleging her Charter rights protecting her from unnecessary search and seizure had been breached because Beck “had obtained confidential information” related to communications between Lemay and her lawyer, according to court documents.

While the request for a stay was denied by Justice Bruce Elwood, Lemay also sought an order to prevent Beck from continuing on as the college’s legal counsel in order to maintain Lemay’s right to private legal advice.

The judge acknowledged that the college came to possess the privileged communications “through inadvertence and sloppy investigative work,” adding that a “more careful review” of the box would have alerted Beck to the risk that it contained privileged documents.

“Rushing to catch a ferry is not an excuse for failing to conduct a proper review of the documents in Ms. Lemay’s home before Mx. Beck seized the entire box,” Elwood wrote in his decision.

“Beck ought to have taken the time to remove only the relevant non-privileged documents or else to have segregated the file folders containing potentially privileged documents,” he added.

“Best practice would have been to have an independent solicitor as part of the search team to conduct an initial review of any potentially privileged documents on site.”

Judge finds ‘no prejudice’

Despite the investigative errors, the judge concluded there was no evidence that the college or its lawyer did anything with the privileged documents, nor did they “read any documents for their content,” he wrote, dismissing the motion to remove Beck from the proceedings.

“In my view, there is no prejudice to Ms. Lemay’s right to a fair hearing or to the integrity of the justice system that will be manifested, perpetuated, or aggravated through allowing these proceedings to continue,” Elwood concluded.

In 1985, Lemay and another woman were charged with criminal negligence causing death after a boy they were attempting to deliver in a Vancouver home died while still in the birth canal.

The pair were convicted in B.C. Supreme Court the following year, but the conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled the fetus must be removed from its mother’s body alive to be considered a person.