‘Trust is gone’ after lengthy Canadian Hearing Services strike, some Ontario deaf clients say
In early June, Jessica Sergeant waited five and a half hours for a sign language interpreter to arrive at her Ottawa hospital room while she had a cardiac emergency.
Sergeant, who is Deaf, said the long wait amid a strike by Canadian Hearing Services workers in Ontario was “traumatic.”
“I didn’t know what was going on with my heart. I didn’t know at all what was happening,” she said through an interpreter in a recent interview.
Sergeant said she was about to get into the ambulance when she texted the Canadian Hearing Services’ Ontario provider to request an in-person American Sign Language interpreter.
“And they said, ‘Have the hospital call us,’” Sergeant recalled.
She said there was no confirmation that an interpreter was coming by the time she got to the hospital, so she had to ask again by typing it out on her phone to show the hospital staff.
“It’s my body, my health, my heart at stake,” she said. “Why is that power in the hands of the hospital or the organization providing the interpreter?”
Finally, an interpreter showed up. But when Sergeant returned to the hospital 10 days later, she was told there were no interpreters available because of the strike.
More than 200 unionized Canadian Hearing Services employees — including interpreters, audiologists and counsellors — walked off the job on April 28, leaving deaf and hard-of-hearing clients without critical services for more than two months.
The employees are set to return to work on July 14 after voting this week to ratify a new three-year contract that includes pension, benefits and wage increases, said their union, CUPE 2073.
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But Sergeant and others who rely on Canadian Hearing Services say the strike has illuminated operational issues at the non-profit, and the need for broader change within the organization.
“Trust is gone from the community,” said Sergeant.
She said timely access to an interpreter was a problem even before the strike.
“The issue fundamentally is my rights as an individual,” said Sergeant. “When I ask for a sign language interpreter, why isn’t that respected and arranged accordingly, immediately?”
During Sergeant’s medical emergency last month, the hearing services provider shouldn’t have required the hospital to verify the need for an interpreter after Sergeant had already requested one, said Leah Riddell, president of the Ontario Cultural Society of the Deaf.
“There is a roster of interpreters, freelance interpreters, different organizations they could have contacted to provide an interpreter, but they made a fundamental decision that impacted Jessica’s health,” Riddell said through an interpreter.
“They have a monopoly over all of us and all the services they provide, which puts us at a standstill.”
Riddell said the organization doesn’t reflect the community it serves, which also affects service quality.
“Their perspective is, ‘We’re going to do this for the Deaf community, but not with the Deaf community,’ and that kind of attitudinal barrier causes more harm to the Deaf community,” said Riddell.
Although Canadian Hearing Services says on its website that the “majority” of its board of directors is Deaf or hard of hearing, only two members identify as such in their bios.
The organization did not respond to questions about its board and leadership diversity, but said in a statement that it continued offering interpreting services during the strike to clients who needed them for urgent matters such as hospital visits.
“While we cannot discuss specific details about an individual client’s service as that information is confidential, we can confirm that we have 100 per cent supported priority clients in all our programs and services offered during the labour dispute,” CHS said.
Khaleelah McKnight, who has a 10-year-old Deaf son and has also turned to CHS to learn American Sign Language, said the strike was “really disruptive” for her child’s medical appointments.
“It’s a really big stress on me as a parent to have to interpret and be mom in an appointment and it also doesn’t allow him to learn how to advocate for himself and to communicate,” she said.
The last time CHS workers walked off the job was for 10 weeks in 2017 — something McKnight said she remembers well. She said the two strikes have left her with little confidence in the leadership of the organization.
“It’s a marginalized community, and in your structure, you seem to have marginalized the very people you’re serving,” she said, adding that she recognizes the strike’s impact on workers, many of whom are also Deaf or hard of hearing and have meaningful relationships with their clients.
“The workers are burnt out, they have their own issues and concerns,” Riddell said. “But at the same time, (CHS) promises to do better and they have not.”
Judith Greaves, a senior from Ottawa who has received interpretation services and mental health counselling from CHS over the past couple of decades, said that as some of those services become more internet-based and technology-reliant, they are actually less accessible for people like her. She relies on satellite internet and said accessing interpreting services over applications such as Zoom can be tricky.
“In the last 10 years it’s gone downhill a bit, where upper management has drawn a line where they can only go so far to help you,” she said.
“We need CHS staff to get back to work and do their jobs and we also need CHS to be more Deaf friendly and do a little bit more for us.”
© 2025 The Canadian Press
A new poll by Leger has found that Quebec residents are the happiest in Canada.
The web survey of nearly 40,000 Canadians found that Quebecers rated their happiness at an average of 72.4 out of 100, which is well above the national average.
New Brunswick followed Quebec with an average of 70.2, while Manitoba and Prince Edward Island finished at the bottom of the list.
Mississauga, Ont. had the highest happiness rating of the 10 largest cities, while Toronto was lowest.
Montreal finished second in the category.
The survey found that 49 per cent of respondents said their happiness level was unchanged over the past year, while 23 per said they were happier and 28 per cent said they were less happy.
“These results reveal a population that is both resilient and tested, affected by everyday uncertainty and challenges,” Leger’s executive summary read. “Happiness, while holding its ground overall, shows signs of fragility.”
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The survey found that people in the 18-to-24 and 24-to-34-year-old categories were more likely to report improved feelings of well-being, even if their overall happiness score remained below the national average.
In contrast, people in the 35-to-44 and 45-to-54 age brackets were more likely to report their happiness had deteriorated.
“There is a sense of well-being emerging among younger age groups,” the summary read. “However, this also highlights the importance of supporting adults in mid-life, who are more vulnerable to the pressures of working life.”
Quebec, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador were the three provinces with happiness levels above the national average of 68.7. They were followed, in descending order, by Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba and P.E.I. The territories were not included in the survey.
In the survey of the 10 largest cities, Mississauga and Montreal finished ahead of Hamilton, Calgary, Brampton, Ottawa, Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto, in that order.
Women reported slightly higher happiness levels than men, at 69.4 versus 68.0.
Leger says the overall results confirm “a level of happiness that is relatively high but stagnant or even slightly down compared to the pre-pandemic period.”
To get the results, Leger surveyed 39,841 Canadians aged 18 and up between March 31 and April 13.
Online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
Ontario Provincial Police are set to host a town hall in Quadeville, Ont., this evening to answer questions from residents about an attack on an eight-year-old child that was initially linked to an animal.
Police have arrested a 17-year-old boy in the case and he faces charges of attempted murder and sexual assault with a weapon.
Members of the small community 170 kilometres west of Ottawa say they were in shock after hearing about the arrest and hope to get clarity at today’s event in the town’s community centre.
Local resident Christine Hudder says she wants to know how police came up with the animal attack theory and why families were told for days to keep their children indoors.
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The victim was found with life-threatening injuries on June 24 after she was reported missing, and remains in hospital.
Police say they are planning to give as much information as possible to locals given that an investigation is still underway.
A Burlington, Ont., mother was unsettled to discover that an old photo of her children had been used in a fraudulent GoFundMe that attempted to elicit donations in connection the recent Texas floods.
Julie Cole told Global News that a friend had contacted her on social media to say that an old photo of her six children was being used in an attempt to collect ill-gotten gains.
“She reached out to me and she was like, ‘Hey, here’s a link to a GoFundMe. Sorry this has happened to you, but obviously a picture of your kids has been used without your consent and it’s being used for a GoFundMe to raise money, to help a family dealing with the Texas floods,’” she said.
Cole explained that the fake GoFundMe, which has since been removed by the company, was looking for donations to support a widowed mother of six kids in connection.
At least 120 people have died while more than 100 others remain unaccounted for as a result of the flooding, including 27 children and councilors from Camp Mystic.
“They were trying to raise $40,000 because of the three daughters had been victims of the Texas floods,” Cole said. “And the way it was presented felt very much like they were part of maybe that girl’s camp.”
Julie Cole told Global News that a friend had contacted her on social media to make that an old photo of her six children was being used in an attempt to collect ill-gotten gains.
Provided
Cole said once the listing was sent to her, she immediately contacted GoFundMe to get the fundraiser taken down.
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By Wednesday morning, the company had done so and in a statement to Global News, GoFundMe said that the fundraiser did not receive any donations and the account has been banned from creating any further fundraisers on the platform.
“GoFundMe has the most robust donor protection processes of any platform of our kind. We have round the clock trust and safety support, humans and technology making sure funds will get to where they are intended,” the statement offered.
After contacting the company, Cole said she shared the incident on her social media pages to raise awareness.
“So I did put it on my Facebook and I put it in my LinkedIn as like a heads-up learning experience kind of thing and there was a lot of outrage,” she said.
Cole also noted that while she is disappointed by the incident, she is well aware that her troubles are miniscule in comparison to those affected by the flooding.
“I do feel a little bit in myself that what I’m feeling is in no way comparable to what the actual families are feeling who have gone through the tragedies of the flooding,” she said.
The photo came from an old blog post she had written 16 years ago. Cole can date the picture as the baby in the photo is now getting ready to go for his driver’s test.
“I’m one of those, like, OG mommy bloggers from 20 years ago. So my kids have been on the internet. They have been sort of in the public eye,” she explained.
“And I know the risk is out there. And I think parents need to remember that, that their kids’ photos can be just screenshotted and used without consent. So there’s one lesson.
“I felt a little, well, very unsettled about it, particularly because of what it was being used for.”
In addition to being a parenting blogger, she also helped found Mabel’s Labels, which offers washable labels for kids clothing and other school items, in an effort to keep them out of the lost and found.
Julie Cole and her six kids in 2025.
Provided
Being a spokesperson for the company while raising six kids keeps her in the parenting sphere and she offered some other advice to parents about the images and social media.
“I think parents just have to be mindful and aware that once it’s out there, you know you’d like to think you’ll get consent or you’ll give consent if somebody asks or they want to use it, but people will just take it and they can just take,” she said.
“You have to be especially careful now with AI, because these photos can be altered.”
She also warned parents to check with their kids as they get older to see if they are OK with pics being posted and that people should be mindful of where they are sharing their donations.
“Another lesson out of this is people need to really be cautious and know where they’re putting their fundraising dollars,” Cole said.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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