Alberta Eugenics Board - End

End

The Progressive Conservative party led by Peter Lougheed came to power in 1971 and, a year later, passed the Alberta Bill of Rights. Shortly after, the new provincial government revoked the Sexual Sterilization Act and folded the Alberta Eugenics Board, citing three reasons:

1. Primarily, the Act violated fundamental human rights.
2. It was based on medical and genetics theories which are now of questionable scientific validity.
3. It was full of legal ambiguities, most notably in the section exempting surgeons from civil liability.

In the mid-1990s, Leilani Muir, a victim of involuntary sterilization in 1959, sued the Alberta government for wrongful sterilization. The case went to full trial in 1995, Muir won the case in 1996, and she was awarded nearly C$1 million in damages and legal costs. Since Muir's precedent-setting trial, over 850 victims have filed law suits against the Alberta government; the majority of these have been settled out of court and C$142 million in damages have been awarded.