Eugenics Ed
ABOUT US
PEOPLE NEED TO BE
EDUCATED ABOUT THIS
CHAPTER OF OUR
PROVINCIAL HISTORY
ABOUT US
Did you know that Alberta has a dark secret? Our province has a history rampant with eugenics: the practice of breeding out traits deemed “undesirable” by sterilizing certain individuals. In 1928 the Alberta government passed the Sexual Sterilization Act, which allowed them to sterilize individuals without consent (1937 amendment) if they were seen as “unfit” by the Alberta Eugenics Board. This often included differently abled individuals, criminals, First Nations, and other racial minority groups, as well as individuals with mental illnesses. Many people are painfully unaware of this section of our history because it is not covered in the Alberta Education curriculum. How can we begin to reconcile with the affected groups if we are ignorant to this cruelty? With the curriculum currently undergoing ‘redesign’ there is no time like now to lobby for eugenics in Alberta to be an included topic in the syllabus. By opening up conversation about this issue, we hope to spark discussion about the ways in which minority groups are marginalized in society, past and present, and how the dominant groups in Alberta’s culture become the “norm” or “standard” to which individuals hold themselves.
THE MICHENER CENTRE
The Michener Centre, formerly known as The Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives in Red Deer, Alberta served as a hub of sexual sterilization and assimilation for differently abled children and adults. The majority of sterilizations preformed were preformed at this facility. Many of these were done without the knowledge of the person receiving the operation.
STATS ABOUT EUGENICS IN ALBERTA
From 1928-1972 2834 people were sterilized by the Alberta Eugenics Board
Sterilizations in Alberta were extremely biased. Although First Nations made up only 2.3% of Alberta's population, 25% of people sterilized were First Nations.
The Sexual Sterilization Act was not repealed until June 2, 1972
HISTORY OF EUGENICS IN ALBERTA
Eugenism was born out of a misunderstanding of the workings of evolution. Many causcasian, anglophone Canadians feared "race suicide", and were concerned that their "master race" would be diluted by other groups. They wrongly assumed that traits such as "feeble-mindedness" and "susceptibility to addiction" could be inherited, and stood on those as grounds for sterilization, among many other traits such as the ones mentioned above. Among supporters of eugenics were Nellie McClung and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as a large portion of the Canadian Suffragettes. Many of the traits deemed undesirable by the Alberta Eugenics Board (developed in 1928) were wrongly associated with minority racial groups and the socioeconomically disadvantaged, which accounts for the clear bias amongst those affected by eugenics.