Canadian Eugenics

[raykeller]

https://historyofrights.ca/encyclopaedia/main-events/eugenics/
Eugenics
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Alberta and British Columbia are the only provinces where, for a number of
years, the government sterilized mentally ill men and women without their
consent.

The science of eugenics, which came into prominence during the late
nineteenth century, was concerned with improving the human race. Eugenicists
believed that natural selection was insufficient, and they sought to
influence human evolution by weeding out undesirables. A combination of
heavy immigration and a fear that undesirables were reproducing at a high
rate contributed to the popularization of eugenics in Canada. Such
well-known figures as Emily Murphy and J.S. Woodsworth were avowed
eugenicists.

The United Farm Women of Alberta, which was at the forefront of lobbying for
sterilization laws, embraced "the ambitious goal of remodeling society
through social improvements . The group emphasized well-raised and
genetically 'superior' children as the hope for a future utopian society."
[Clément 2012] Alberta's 1928 Sexual Sterilization Act created a Eugenics
Board that was empowered to recommend sterilization as a condition for
release from a mental health institution. The purpose was to ensure that
"the danger of procreation with its attendant risk of multiplification of
the evil by transmission of the disability to progeny were eliminated."
[Clément 2012] An amendment in 1937 permitted the sterilization of "mental
defectives" without their consent.

Why was Alberta among the few Canadian provinces that legislated
sterilization? In "The Right to Consent?" Jana Grekul offers a few
suggestions: Its government was "based in populist and grassroots ideology,
which was linked to restrictionist policies and anti-immigration sentiments,
strong opposition to federalism," and heavy "reliance on 'experts'
(including mental health experts)." The Catholic presence in Alberta was
relatively weak, and the subsequent "Social Credit government became
complacent and stagnant; led by charismatic leaders who were also
fundamentalist religious leaders, the populace also seemed to accept the
status quo with little question."

Between 1928 and 1972, the Alberta Eugenics Board approved 99 percent of its
4,785 cases. Over time, increasing numbers of its decisions involved people
who did not give their consent. And it was clearly biased against young
adults (twenty- to twenty-four-year-olds), women, and Aboriginals
(Aboriginals were also more likely to be diagnosed as mentally defective).
Even in cases where agreement was obtained, it is impossible to know how
many people were coerced into consenting. This is particularly true for
women, who bear the burden of carrying children and are typically
responsible for their care.

The forced sterilization of mentally ill people was obviously inconsistent
with the principles of the rights revolution. Thus, it is no surprise that
Alberta's Peter Lougheed government, which had already introduced
wide-ranging human rights legislation and was preparing to remove
restrictions against Hutterites, eliminated the Sexual Sterilization Act in
1972. Speaking before the legislature, Premier Lougheed explained that "we
feel very, very strongly that the [act] is offensive and at odds with the
proposed Bill of Rights." Alberta MLA David King, who introduced a bill to
repeal the act, noted succinctly at its second reading, "I come finally to
the last [reason] which, for me personally, is the most compelling. That is,
simply, that the act violates fundamental human rights. We are provided with
an act, the basis of which is a presumption that society, or at least the
government, knows what kind of people can be allowed children and what kinds
of people cannot . It is our view that this is a reprehensible and
intolerable philosophy and program for this province and this government."
[Clément 2012]

Leilani Muir sued the Alberta government in 1995. At age ten, she had been
admitted to Red Deer's Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives as
an abused child and had been held against her will for ten years (later
testing showed that she was mentally normal). She later discovered that she
had been sterilized during an appendectomy. The judge awarded her $1
million. Within three years, the province faced hundreds of additional
lawsuits. In a move that shocked the country, the government introduced a
bill to apply the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms to impose a $150,000 cap on all lawsuits. The ensuing public outcry
led it to withdraw the bill within twenty-four hours (it later agreed to an
out-of-court settlement of $80 million). The Edmonton Journal suggested that
"it took either cavalier disregard for basic civil rights or casual
incompetence in preparing legislation for the bill to even be introduced"
and described the incident as a "24-hour lesson in basic human rights."
[Clément 2012]


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