Authorities in Quebec say they are looking for an important witness in the search for three-year-old .

Provincial police say investigators are looking for a woman who worked and lived on a farm who they believe met the child’s 34-year-old mother, Rachel-Ella Todd, sometime on Sunday between 9:45 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., in either in southwestern Quebec or Ontario.

Officers say the woman speaks both English and French and was wearing an apron with the word “abondance” across the front.

Todd was arrested and charged Tuesday with unlawful abandonment of a child after she reported her daughter as missing Sunday in Coteau-du-Lac, Que., about 50 kilometres west of where she was last seen in Montreal’s LaSalle borough.

Authorities say Todd parked her SUV outside a store in Coteau-du-Lac, went inside and told staff she couldn’t find her daughter.

Todd briefly appeared via video conference from a police station in Vaudreuil Tuesday before being detained at the Leclerc prison in Laval.

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Crown prosecutor Lili Prévost Gravel told reporters she opposed the accused’s release due to the seriousness of the charge.

She will appear again Wednesday afternoon to set a date for a bail hearing.

The child is described as three-feet tall, has brown hair and brown eyes and was last seen wearing a white long-sleeve shirt with pink on the collar and grey pants.

The mother had been driving a 2007 grey Ford Escape with a “Baby on Board” sticker in the back window and the licence plate K50 FVE.

Officials are asking anyone who sees the girl or has information about her location to call 911. Witnesses can report tips anonymously.

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Police in LaSalle, Ont., say that residents of the community may have become the latest victims of a disturbing TikTok door-kicking challenge.

According to police, a number of people living in the Ramblewood neighbourhood had to deal with attempted break-and-enter and mischief incidents between 11:30 p.m. on Friday to 2 a.m. on Saturday.

In each incident, police say the front doors to the homes were kicked in before suspects fled the area.

“The incidents may be part of a TikTok challenge where participants kick the front doors of homes and then run away while filming the incident,” a release from police read.

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“The acts may cause undue distress on the home residents and can result in criminal charges for those who choose to participate.”

Police in LaSalle — which lies on the Canada-U.S. border just south of Windsor — join a growing list of services across Canada that have been forced to issue warnings about the challenge in which individuals bang, kick or damage a home’s door and run away, while documenting the incident on the social media platform.

Over the past few years, there were incidents in Cobourg and Port Dover in Ontario, as well as an incident in Squamish, B.C., which escalated into an altercation that sent two people to hospital.

In that incident, a homeowner who’d been dealing with the issue for a number of years, placed fishing wire outside his front door to catch the alleged culprits in the act.

The man told Global News that he and his wife landed in hospital as a result of the ensuing melee.

2:34
TikTok challenge turns confrontational in Courtenay

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As a patient, Jessica Demeria knows first hand how challenging the medical system can be for First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.

“We may be looked at in a certain way with our underlying Indigenous history informing the way that we are cared for,” Demeria said. “A trauma-informed approach is absolutely one-on-one necessary.”

While Demeria is a patient, she is also part of the team at Unity Health Toronto that is working to change that experience for Indigenous patients.

Thanks to an $11-million investment from The Krawcyzky Family Foundation, a transformed space at St. Michael’s Hospital in downtown Toronto is set to become a new Indigenous Wellness Centre.

Roberta Pike is the director of Indigenous Wellness, Reconciliation and Partnerships at Unity Health Toronto.

“This gift has expanded our ability to have more patient-facing supports on the ground in the inpatient units and in the emergency department,” Pike said.

A significant milestone for Indigenous health: 

Kevin Goldthorp, president and CEO of St. Michael’s and Providence Foundation, said to the hospital’s knowledge this donation represents the largest gift in Canada specifically earmarked for Indigenous wellness.

Goldthorp said it is a critical piece of the their ongoing commitment to reconciliation.

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“We are a hospital that cares about the Indigenous communities,” Goldthorp said, “We’re here for you, we care about how you’re cared for, we care for your care outcomes.”

This week, construction crews have been working around the clock for the ceremonial opening of the Indigenous Wellness Centre, scheduled for Wednesday, June 18, at St. Michael’s Hospital.

With Indigenous art, a specialized HVAC system to allow ceremonial smudging, and more space for families, Pike hopes people feel at home when they walk into the newly-renovated space.

“A lot of people have intergenerational trauma associated with places or environments, and hospitals seem to be one of those leading examples of spaces that might be triggering for people,” Pike said.

This centre marks the first phase of the many projects this donation will support. There are also plans for another wellness centre at Providence Healthcare.

According to the foundation, that site will include a medicine garden, sweat lodge, and sacred fire. The donation will also support an additional staffing position, support education and community engagement, and help expand patient access to elders and traditional care providers.

A national perspective on providing care: 

Dr. Alika Lafontaine served as the president of the Canadian Medical Association in 2022. He was the first Indigenous physician and the youngest doctor to lead the organization.

Lafontaine said he believes centres like this improve health outcomes for Indigenous patients.

“You really have a huge opportunity to either mitigate past harm that’s happened and create a more welcoming environment, or to prevent the possibility of people experiencing that new harm.”

“Having these spaces is actually a really, really big part of why people end up going to a location or choosing to stay” Lafontaine said.  “The health system hasn’t always been the best place for people who are First Nation, Inuit or Métis to receive care. Creating Indigenous-specific spaces, I think, is one of the ways that we create greater warmth and greater inclusion for folks who’ve had bad experiences in the past.”

Data from Statistics Canada shows between 2019 and 2022, about half of First Nations adults living off reserve reported having at least one chronic health condition compared with 40.6 per cent of non-Indigenous adults.

“The patients we see are coming to us, they’re very complex,” Pike said. “They have many layers of hurt, many layers (of) trauma, many layers (of)  joy in their lives. And so we’re trying to kind of work through all of those different aspects.”

Pike hopes the services offered at this new wellness centre will provide more options to meet the needs of the patients she sees and serve as an example for other hospitals.

“We see the people that we interact with in the hospital as an extension of our own families,” Pike said. “The ways in which we would want to treat our own family members is exactly the same way in which want to serve the people who are here.”

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