Complaint filed about breastfeeding city councillor

Watch the video above: Complaint filed about breastfeeding city councillor. Mark McAllister reports. 

TORONTO – One Oshawa city councillor was surprised to get a visit from the Children’s Aid Society after a complaint was filed against her.

The concern? She brought her month-old baby to work at city hall. While the specific concerns of the complaint aren’t known due to CAS confidentiality, Councillor Amy England thinks it was because council sessions can go late and can be loud.

“I understand the role that children’s aid plays and respect that they have to follow up on these frivolous complaints,” she said. “It’s scary when you get that call and you don’t know what’s going on.”

England also breastfeeds her baby right outside of council chambers.

“It’s my choice to be a working mother and in order for me to do my job as a council members, I have to bring her to feed her,” she said. “So I can understand why some people might not agree with me but that doesn’t stop the fact that she still needs to be fed and I still need to do my job as a councillor.”

CAS cleared her of any wrongdoing and said “there was no issue and they had no concerns,” England said.

England understands the controversy but said “if I felt it wasn’t going to be safe, I wouldn’t bring her. I would make other arrangements.”

CAS officials wouldn’t speak to specific cases but said they have to make contact when children under the age of five are the subject of a complaint.

But Oshawa Children’s Aid director Wanda Secord said in an interview Friday the organization doesn’t consider bringing newborns to work a “child protection concern.”

Despite nothing coming of the complaint to CAS, some people are concerned about the nature of the complaint itself.

“We know that it’s a human rights violation to require a breastfeeding mother to move to a more private place, to ask her to cover up, to ask her to not feed, to comment, or to accost her in anyway,” said Sarah LeMay, owner of maternity store Evymama. “A woman is built to nurse, it’s part of her body, it’s part of herself.”

England plans to bring her newborn daughter, Amelia, with her for another few months until she can stay at home with her dad.

– With files from Cindy Pom