Exhibit at the Guelph Civic Museum Shows the Institutional History of Eugenics in Southern Ontario
INTO THE LIGHT is an exhibit at the Guelph Civic Museum co-curated by Mona Stonefish, Peter Park, Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning, Evadne Kelly, Seika Boye and Sky Stonefish that shows and discusses the role Southern Ontario played in the eugenics movement, a part of history we need to continue to remember, lest we see history repeat.
It was stated in the Into the Light exhibit that the link between home economics, eugenics, and agriculture was their shared interest in selective breeding. Raymond Pearl, the author of Breeding Better Men stated that, “if this be a good way in which to improve animals and plants in general, is it not worth considering in connection with the problem of the betterment of the human race?”
The Into the Light exhibit emphasized the many ways eugenics was infiltrated into society. The eugenics movement included “positive” and “negative” eugenics. Negative eugenics is when reproduction is discouraged for those considered “unfit.” Who was considered “unfit” included people with disabilities, mental illness, addictions, people in poverty, and criminals. Positive eugenics is when reproduction is encouraged for those considered “fit.” While eugenics controlled all women’s bodies and limited all women’s agency, the intersections of race, class, and ability are important to consider as the way in which women were controlled differed based on these intersections. Women who were of lower socioeconomic status (SES), women of colour, and those who had disabilities were coerced or involuntarily subjected to sterilization.
Eugenics was also pursued through marriage and immigration restrictions, segregation, and institutionalization. Those in institutions, such as the Training School for Girls in Galt and the Oxford Regional Centre in Woodstock, were dehumanized, refused rights, subjected to experiments, and forced into manual labour.
One way to engage in negative eugenics was to perform sterilizations. Three reasons given by the Ontario Department of Health in 1938 for sterilizations included to “benefit the health of the person sterilized,” to prevent defective offspring, and for economic reasons. While people could be sterilized for their health, women were unable to get an abortion to benefit their health in Canada until 1969.
Unlike British Columbia and Alberta, Ontario never had an official sterilization act. According to Tabitha Marshall, an editor for the Canadian encyclopedia, and Gerald Robertson, a researcher out of Queen’s University, in the 1930s, Ontario (and many other provinces) considered implementing sterilization acts but there was resistance, particularly from Catholics. Despite not having an official act, the province did sanction and pay for sterilizations.
Men were also sterilized. Jana Grekul from the University of Alberta found that 46 per cent of the cases presented to the Alberta Eugenics Board were men, and 53 per cent of them were sterilized. While more women than men were sterilized, 42 per cent of those legally sterilized in Alberta were men.
Exact numbers in Ontario are hard to determine. Sheila Gibbons, who studied at York University, noted that Alvin Ratz Kaufman, a key figure in the eugenics movement, claimed that his rubber plant was used for 1,000 male sterilizations. Kaufman was a wealthy industrialist from Kitchener and a member of the Eugenics Society of Canada who actively fought for the legalization of eugenic sterilization and the sale of contraceptives. In the 1930s Kaufman created the Parents’ Information Bureau, which distributed birth control information — even when it was illegal. Kaufman also arranged for people to get sterilized.
Limiting family size for the “unfit” was also done through other methods of birth control. In order to advance contraceptive use, women of colour, low-income women, and psychiatric patients were tested on. The pill and other birth control methods were not meant to encourage sexual freedom, but instead, to help aid in family planning for white, middle and upper class, married, women. The advancement of contraceptives was achieved for some women at the expense of other women.
An important element of eugenics was education. Courses at the Macdonald Institute and Ontario Agriculture College included eugenics in their genetics courses as eugenics was embedded in the education system of the time; however, the understanding of heredity was, at the time, faulty. Common diseases, such as tuberculosis and various vitamin deficiencies, that were thought to be hereditary, are, in fact, not.
In 1986, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized that sterilization requires consent. Despite this, Karen Stote, a researcher at Wilfrid Laurier University, states that non-consensual sterilization is still happening in Canada. Approximately 100 Indigenous women have come forward in recent years after having experienced coerced sterilization. Stote stated that these current sterilizations are based on eugenic ideas and directly link back to the eugenics movement, during which hundreds of Indigenous women were sterilized and there was a strong link between eugenics, colonialism, and assimilation.
While, unfortunately, the practices of forced sterilization and the push for limiting family size from certain people still exists, the eugenics of tomorrow may look a little different. The creation of genetically altered “designer babies” may be the new eugenics. Genetic screening can be used to determine genetic information, including some disabilities. Phillip Ball of The Guardian notes that this information can be used to terminate a pregnancy or in choosing which embryos to use during in vitro fertilization. Additionally, the CBC reports that gene-editing technology exists but is illegal to use in Canada.