Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to speak about forced sterilization. Mr. Speaker, recently we have seen headlines in the Edmonton Journal about the Alberta government compensating women who had been sterilized without their consent. Apparently, Alberta and British Columbia were the only Canadian provinces having this type of program. People have called these acts barbaric and horrific. They want to know how this could have happened in Canada? Mr. Speaker, this was not the only sterilization program in the world. There were similar programs in Austria, Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Belgium and Sweden. In fact, in Sweden from 1934 to 1974, almost 63,000 people were sterilized and the Swedish government said it was because they were unable to raise children. In the U.S.A. from 1972 to 1978, over 3,400 native women were sterilized without their consent. This was to control populations on the reservations. Native American women during that same time period had rates of induced abortions which were increased from 34 to 77 for 1,000, which is over double. In Canada, sterilizations were authorized through the Sexual Sterilization Act, which was later repealed in 1972. In British Columbia, 400 people were sterilized, but in Alberta, they went all out. At least 2,800 people were sterilized between 1928 and 1972, probably some from the north as well. They were sterilized if they had mental deficiencies, were retarded or if they were bad parents. The patients were from all over western Canada and they were sterilized at the Charles Camsell Hospital in Edmonton or in Red Deer.
We know that our native people have been sent to the Charles Camsell Hospital for years and years and many still are. Some of those women were sterilized. It seems native women were sterilized even if they were not sick or retarded or in any other dangerous situation. I have been informed that in the 1960s and 70s, women from Dettah asked their local priests why they did not have any children for the past three or four years. They had found out later that they had been sent to and delivered their children at the Charles Camsell Hospital and were sterilized afterwards. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.