Hi everybody and welcome.
Tonight we're going to be having a screening of "The Sterilization of Leilani Muir". 
This is put on by The Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada.
I'm Moyra Lang and I'm the project coordinator for the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada. 
My name is Rob Wilson and I'm the director of The Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada.
My name is Ben McMahen. I'm an RA
(Research Assistant) for Rob Wilson. 
 In 1957, as a girl
of 14, Leilani was surgically sterilized in the Provincial Training
School for Mental Defectives. Now, she's suing the government
of Alberta for damages. After years of preparation, her
case goes to court in just a few days. 
 The National Film Board
approached me to make this film.
I was honoured to be given the responsibility
to make a documentary that would
expose this period, this
treachery in Alberta's history.
I think it's an important week to have on the map for people
in Alberta so that they can recognize some of what's happened
in their own history, and maybe come to appreciate how it's had
downstream and ongoing effects for a number of people in our community
who might well be walking around with the rest of us
now, and have a history that most people won't be aware of.
Through that personal story it became more
than just information about an act, to
the public it exposed so much more.
That it wasn't just a piece of history, that it,
it was something that had an enduring impact
and is still, as we all know, having an impact.
I'd really prefer if you wouldn't refer to me in the
those terms. 
those terms. 
 What terms? 
 Referring to me as a special
needs. It is rather ableist, y'know? 
needs. It is rather ableist, y'know? 
needs. It is rather ableist, y'know? 
I see... I hate to break this to you Rachael Jobes but
from my vantage point your entire species is rather
well, challenged. 
It's really important
to talk about our history because the history pertains to some
aspects of our modern culture. It pertains to the future.
Eugenics pertains quite closely to a lot of modern issues
that surround topics of disability, prenatal screening, and
that sort of thing. So, we really want to raise awareness about the history in order to
explore these contemporary issues that we have. 
Your professors are
here to help you pass University but their... 
Students union is here to help you enjoy
it. Join your club of choice... 
And make friends for life.
Debate club! 
Alpha Beta House!
Eco club! 
I want to join the... 
 Um, we're full. 
We do have a disabled student's association.
Why don't you join them? You'll fit in there. 
Well, I think it's important
for the community to learn about Eugenics because it
is part of our history that's continually
being erased, being removed from the history books. I think it's really
important because that history informs
a lot of our contemporary attitudes towards present day
persons with disabilities. I think
when we forget parts of our past
It's really detrimental to
our overall knowledge and awareness
Welcome, I'm Moyra Lang
and I'm the project coordinator with The Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada.
Tonight we're going to have a series of short videos on disability.
and some discussion. 
I wasn't supposed to live to see my first birthday
I wasn't supposed to be married, I wasn't supposed to
go to school. I wasn't supposed to... I wasn't supposed to... I wasn't supposed to... 
I've done it... I've done it... I've done it... I've done it...
... attacking her muscles and weakening them.
What makes her so inspirational is that Daniel reminds us
all how horrible it would be to be confined
to a wheelchair , like she is.
And so now, without further ado,
I present the 2008 crip of the year award to
Daniel Peers. Daniel, you're such an inspiration to all
of us. 
I think it's really important to raise awareness about
Eugenics and the history of Eugenics in this province for a few reasons. One
is because, basically, people
don't know about it. Everyone that I talk to, including interns that we hire and
people in the community that we talk to, aren't aware of this history. 
And it's an important history. 
I'm Moyra Lang, and I'm project coordinator for The Living
Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada. 
It is actually
Alberta Eugenics Awareness week from the 15th to the
23rd of October. And this is being put on by
The Living Archives on Eugenics. And the project director is professor
Rob Wilson. And we're a five year project, and we're in year two. 
and just about to start year three.
I was really inspired by, at some of the events, the amount of people that showed up.
The person's day panel discussion, we really had
a large number of people present. 
So, the basic facts. From the time of the confederation of the Provinces in 1867
the British North America Act functioned as the constitution of Canada.
... And what it does I think, and it does this in the person's case, is
it's used to distinguish in the human case between
humans do deserve one kind of treatment, and human's who don't. 
A person is used to mark that boundary even though in the vernacular all of these are persons
We brought in a number of scholars,
to talk about the history of the Women's movement, in particular
to talk about the Famous Five. And how these people were involved
in the history of Eugenics. It was really important to raise awareness
about this, and to reveal the complexities of the issues.
Welcome, everyone. Thanks for coming out.
Today is an event that forms part of Alberta Eugenics Awareness
Week. We're up to event 5 now. 
Some of the challenges would
be just really getting the word out beyond the
University campus, to get some more involvement
from the community. 
 The public forum today is entitled
"Why is Alberta Eugenics History Relevant Today?" 
Probably what
I'd like to see next year is probably
activities and events that are really targeted towards
more community involvement. 
If, like me, you believe that changing attitudes
to disability is important, primarily because such attitudes play a large
role in the discrimination and exclusion of disabled people,
and if you believe that, as I hope to show, that studying Eugenics
can actually help to change attitudes about disability, then
I think it becomes clear why studying this history is relevant today.
There was the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta that was enacted
in 1928, in the Province, and was in place
until 1972.
That law provided for the sterilization of so-called
mental defectives. 
I was made a ward of the government
at the age of 6. 
I knew I was going to be sterilized at the age of 10.
I'm facing this, it's the end of my life, just rip myself open and forget
about it. And forget about living. Because it did... it destroyed me.
... as a person. I was no longer a person, as far as I was concerned
I'm still a number, an idiot... That isn't true
but that's how I was made to feel. 
To understand
why Eugenics was wrong, it really helps
to see that it was premised that it was premised on this mistaken view of disability.
People have asked me, "Do you believe that you were retarded when you were 6?"
Certain not. 
I'm not today. And that's not changing. I'm certainly not retarded.
And I'm not feebleminded. 
This is
something that reaches beyond the Academy walls. 
I think this is really pertinent
for all Albertans, and really for all Canadians.
We're going to start very small and informal. I'm Rob Wilson, and
I'm the project director for The Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada.
We have a team that's from three Universities, we have about 30 team members.
We work with about 15 community partners, including the Alberta Association for Community Living.
Some of the challenges were just the logistics
of organizing all of these events. It was exhausting to be in an event every single
day, and to raise awareness about the events themselves.
So just getting people informed about what we were doing
was difficult, sometimes. 
The way that this question
"Which of the following persons of groups advocate Eugenics?" and then you have choices.
If you just click on the first one... Galton... 
and then Submit. Then you go to Galton, and you get
an answer to that question, or more information about Galton. 
I think it'd be really
important to engage the public again in ways that is not just a matter of talking
or reading articles, or
things like that... but actually looking at stuff, and exploring the ideas that way.
You can almost think of it as floating encyclopedia entries. 
And, the benefit here is that
through the mind-map we can show how these entries are connected
to each other. 
In the future, we want to reach out to more people
increase awareness more, and try and spur on
ordinary people in the community to have their own input on
what Eugenics means for them in their own local niche. 
I appreciated a small session that we had
that was focused on a petition that local
community member had independently brought several years ago
to have Margaret Thompson's order of Canada
revoked. 
Today, we're here
for a session on Margaret W. Thompson, and
it's prompted, very much, by the person on my far right
Rob Wells. 
I'm not a lawyer, an academic, a professional,
I'm not a member of any organization. So, I'm very much a loose cannon.
So I'm totally free to point the finger wherever I feel it's appropriate. 
I try to be reasonable. So it does give me a freedom to be
very objective about what I
...doing what is my conscience to do. 
 And that was because of her involvement in the Eugenics Board
and her continuing, defence I guess,
of the need for the Board to act as it did. 
And this came out during the Leilani Muir trial. 
When this came out
and I was aware that Margaret Thompson got the order of Canada, I just felt I
had to do something. 
That was a really interesting discussion, that we
had with some students and other community members. 
The sterilization
of people who were not mentally handicapped
and the castration of Down Syndrome
boys who were already infertile, not for
... to protect the public, but for her genetic research
and that's what really appalled me. That this, to me, is the same kind of stuff that
Dr. Mengele, except maybe not quite on that same scale, but
where's the conscience of the person involved in that? And how could
it be that academics at the U of A were not aware
of that? It boggles
my mind that this could still be going on after the 1947 Nuremberg war trials. 
It's so quiet and peaceful here... 
I love it, I love it. 
It just warms my heart to know that
somebody had thought to do that, and
gone out of their way to do it.
I love it. That's a memory you can never
... erase from your
brain. And to come down here
and see it, and thank Kate for doing that... Thank you, thank you girl!
Because I thought about well, why hasn't somebody named
a road, or building after me? 
And somebody did! Somebody did the bridge, which is
better because it's exercise and you have to walk it to see it.
That's better. I love this...
I love it here, though, it's so peaceful. 
It's gorgeous.
Kate, thank you so much, sweetie. 
 Oh, you're welcome. Thank you!
Thank you... 
In particular, I think
the art show was very successful. It brought a lot of people out, and because art
is something people can easily engage with, it really appeals to a lot of people, and it
allows people to experience the history in different ways.
So I think that was a very successful event.
They're reflecting on a dark history in our province, the history of eugenics. Between the years 1928 to
1972, over 2000 individuals were sterilized in the province of Alberta because they were deemed
unfit to participate in the genetic social body. They were seen as mentally defective
and incapable of competent parenthood, feebleminded, or
otherwise undesirable. 
For the art show that Anne Pasek curated
was a highlight. We had representation from
politicians, from community members, from sterilization survivors
and some very powerful art. 
 I'm one of the few politicians
left in the Alberta provincial legislature who was there
when the Act that made Leilani
a household word in Alberta was introduced on the floor of the assembly.
Although lots of Albertans, including one of the
Famous Five, engaged in promoting Eugenics, I'm proud
of the way Alberta reacted to what was attempted to be done to
Leilani and done to others. 
I was never a linear thinker
and so this is like linear thought
and the linear thought is lost in the folds of the clothing. 
This project really is an interdisciplinary community focused approach,
that we need to address the legacy of Eugenics.
in Alberta. The Collective Memory Project and Living Archives
on Eugenics in Western Canada, are really driven by that University-Community
engagement mandate. 
What does this eugenic history mean to
people now? Not, is this eugenics, is it not eugenics?
Let's not argue about these merely philosophical kinds of questions. 
But, let's think about how does it feel inside here, when you
hear about this history. There are people who are actually younger than my mother
who are still walking around, kicking around, 
who have actually lived through this history.
So it's not just history.
They had a mentally normal person, of normal intelligence
living in this institution, who was capable of
coming out afterwards and writing a book about it. There have been
many books written about eugenics. This will be the only
one that I know of, that's actually written by somebody who was
directly a victim of the eugenics movement. 
The PTS was said to be
a training school, for the disabled.
Which it really wasn't. It was for both disabled and normal children.
There were a lot of other girls and boys there
who were like me -- children who's parents didn't want them. 
I found out from the nurses that my real name was
Leilani... not Tom, or Marie,
as my family had always called me. I thought Leilani was a
beautiful name. I was also given a
registered number. I was trainee
1325. 
I would say it's very worthwhile to explore these
ideas and come out and discuss the issues, because it's not just
history. It relates to many contemporary issues
that we're dealing with. If you're at all interested in ideas of disability
or prenatal screening, or human enhancement
or those sort of topics, discussing the
topic of eugenics is very important. 
I'd encourage people to look out
for it when it comes around next year, or this year, I should say -- 2012
We hope to have another
Mayoral proclamation for the week and
I hope to see people there.
