Butterbox Babies

Stories about the Ideal Maternity Home on Canada's rocky East Coast have been the subject of public trials and private whisperings for more than half a century. CBC Television producer and award-winning journalist Bette Cahill has conducted extensive research for more than 15 years and has uncovered the horrifying truth about the Home, its owners, the babies born there and those who died there. The evidence reveals that for sums as steep as $10,000, couples were able to choose their infants like they were buying produce at a supermarket. Many of those babies ended up in the United States. The chosen babies were the lucky ones. Hundreds of others were left to die and were buried in wooden butter boxes. Cahill's research led to the creation of a network of men and women who began to trace their past, discover their true identities and establish their link to a dark chapter in Canada's history. It also ignited scores of cross-border searches for long lost families. At last count there were 230 known survivors in Canada, the United States and Europe and upwards of a hundred emotional and uplifting reunions.