Elizabethan Poor Law

• Breakdown of the medieval social structure
• Charity gradually replaced with a compulsory land tax levied at parish level
• Impotent poor (people who can't work - "lame, impotent, old, blind") were to be cared for in almshouse or a poorhouse
• Able-bodied poor were to be set to work
• Idle poor and vagrants were to be sent to a house of correction or even prison
• Pauper children would become apprentices

Mass immigration programs

• Settlers encouraged to immigrate from England and Scotland
• Even in early stages persons with disabilities were singled out in particular and prevented from immigrating to Canada

Ontario passes An Act to Authorise the Erection of an Asylum within this Province for the Reception of Insane and Lunatic Persons (first on mental health disabilities)

Francis Galton publishes Hereditary Genius

British Columbia passes the Insane Asylums Act.

British Columbia passes the Hospital for the Insane Act

Alberta passes an Act Respecting Insane Persons

1. Outlines how persons deemed “insane and dangerous to the community” were to be managed

United Farmers of Alberta is created (United Farm Women of Alberta as auxiliary in 1915), which later lobbies for Sterilization laws

Passing of Immigration Act

• Gives the federal government the power to deny entry and to deport immigrants belonging to “prohibited classes”: “feeble-minded”, “afflicted with any loathsome disease”, “dumb, blind, or otherwise physically defective”.

Ontario passes House of Refuge Act

Alberta passes the Lunatics' Estates Act

Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene (CNCMH)

Alberta passes The Mothers' Allowance Act (shows financial/societal repercussions of eugenic policies)

Second International Eugenics Conference

Alberta amends the 1919 Mental Defectives Act to include the distinction between “mentally defective” and other terms such as “mentally incompetent”, which ultimately transferred the issue from the Department of Education to the Department of Public Health

Alberta renames the Insanity Act of 1907 to Mental Diseases Act. The words “insane” and “insanity” are essentially wiped out of mental health legislation.

Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act

(RSA 1970, c 341 - repealed in 1972)

• 1932 amendment allows physicians to direct sexual sterilization without consent
• Eugenics Board becomes responsible for estimated 2,834 sterilizations of which 89% were done without consent (of those 77% done to First Nations People)

Eugenics Society of Canada

Third International Eugenics Conference

Manitoba passes Mental Deficiency Act

• Classifies individuals into 3 classes of defectives: idiots, imbeciles and morons
• Passed without sterilization clause

British Columbia Sexual Sterilization Act

(RSBC 1960, c 353 - repealed in 1973)

• Approves sterilization of individuals living in designated state institutions deemed to have undesirable traits
• Establishes a Board of Eugenics to approve sterilization

Alberta amends the Sexual Sterilization Act to specify conditions, procedures, and liabilities for sterilization, and to introduce new terminology

Alberta passes an Act respecting the Mentally Incompetent Persons and their Estates, outlining a process for the state to take possession of the estate of persons declared “unsound in mind”

The Eugenics Society of Canada sponsored eight radio addresses. The radio series, called The Future of the Race.

Alberta passes the Mentally Disordered Act

• For the first time detention or institutionalization is justified with the disabled person's interests, in addition to and sequentially ahead of the public interest

British Columbia introduces the Mental Health Act

Dr. Bernard L. Diamond summarizes scientific arguments against non-consensual sterilization in 1960 when he serves as special consultant to the American Psychiatric Association Report on Mental Health Legislation in British Columbia:

"All laws providing for the sterilization of the mentally ill or defective which have in their basis the concept of inheritability of mental illness and mental deficiency are open to serious question as to their scientific validity and their social desirability.

(…) Present day psychiatry, although still vitally interested in the possible genetic factors in mental illness and mental deficiency, avoids the sweeping generalizations so prevalent in the past, Genetic has evolved into a much more precise science and very significant work is being done on the inheritance of mental illness. Nevertheless, this is a field of great conflict: there has been much learned in recent years of the impact of environment on child development (…).

In short, the present state of our scientific knowledge does not justify the widespread use of the sterilization procedures in mentally ill or mentally deficient persons."

• Ferster, Elyce Zenoff, Eliminate the Unfit – Is Sterilization the Answer?, Ohio State Law Journal, 27, 1966

Ontario passes the Blind Persons’ Rights Act

• First province to guarantee blind persons the right to be accompanied by a guide dog in all public places

Alberta repeals the Sexual Sterilization Act and amends the Mentally Disordered Act

British Columbia repeals the Sexual Sterilization Act

Nova Scotia amends its Human Rights Act to prohibit employment discrimination against the “physically handicapped”

Ontario Developmental Services transfers responsibility for developmental disabilities services from the Ministry of Health to the Ministry of Community and Social Services

Canadian Human Rights Act

• Creates CHRC and CHRT
• Prohibits discrimination on grounds of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, marital status, family status, disability, and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted

"In the context of our general knowledge about the groups of people (women, children, mentally handicapped) to whom protective laws apply and the subjective nature of such categorization in the case of mental handicap, it is critical that great care be taken to specify clearly the basis and need for protection.

The stigma imposed on such persons by their characterization as “persons in need of protection” is emphasised by the implication that such persons lack some quality of humanity that precludes them from the general rules of treatment usually accorded other members of society. This has important implications in law and particularly in criminal law. As a group they are warranted protection which affects their ability to determine their sexual and reproductive behaviour. (…) In the zeal of the law to protect, what has occurred is protection “against” rather than protection “for” such categories of persons. The laws have been founded on unsound, unscientific views that have resulted in treatment based on group rather than individual characteristics."

• Law Reform Commission of Canada, Sterilization : implications for mentally retarded and mentally ill persons, 1979, p. 121

Bill 82 - Ontario Education Act amended to obligate school boards to provide education to students with disabilities.

ARCH and the Human Rights Coalition argue to include “handicap” as an enumerated ground in the HR Code

Fighting for accessible transportation

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms passes

ON removes restrictions to persons with disabilities from the ON Election Act after ARCH submissions along with other organizations

"(…) there are really two substantial issues to be resolved. The first is raised by the question: who can legally consent to the sterilization of one who, through age and/or disability, is incapable of providing the required personal consent? The second concerns the standards to be met before such substituted consent can be given.

Although forced by practical necessity to bring this application, the petitioner takes the position that parents have the absolute right to decide what is best for their children.

(…) I am satisfied that such a submission cannot prevail. One cannot speak of the rights of parents without at the same time recognizing that the role of parenthood is characterized more by its obligations than by its rights.

(…) Parental rights, although immune to other sources of outside interference, have, since antiquity, been subject to the power of the Court to intervene for the benefit of the child."

- K. v. The Public Trustee, 1985, Supreme Court of British Columbia at paras 14-17

(Source)

E (Mrs) v. Eve, 2 SCR 388

• Supreme Court of Canada recognizes that sterilization procedures should not be conducted without patient’s consent, even if requested by their family

Multiculturalism Act

Life in the Institution is exposed in ARCHtype by Peter Park.

Muir v. The Queen in Right of Alberta

Leilani Muir, who was institutionalized and sterilized as a teenager, successfully sues the Alberta government after she learned years later that she was unable to have children. Muir v. The Queen in Right of Alberta was a landmark case in Canada. “The defendant's actions were unlawful, offensive and outrageous.”

Eaton v. Brant County Board of Education. ARCH argues the placement of children in special education class without parental consent infringes the child’s equality Charter rights. The Supreme Court of Canada does not find a right to inclusion in education.

The Institutional Confinement and Sexual Sterilization Compensation Act passes.

"A person's right of self-determination is an important philosophical and legal principle. A person can be capable of making a basic decision and not capable of making a complex decision. Dr. Molloy, the director of the Geriatric Research Group and Memory Centre and associate professor of geriatrics at McMaster University, said:

Different aspects of daily living and decision-making are now viewed separately. The ability to manage finances, consent to treatment, stand trial, manage personal care, make personal care or health decisions, all require separate decision- making capabilities and assessments.

- Calvert (litigation guardian of) v. Calvert, 1997 CanLII 12096 (ON SC), at paras 54-55

British Columbia introduces new plan for the development of mental health services

Ontario passes Ontarians with Disabilities Act

• ARCH offers legal counsel to the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee

Auton (Guardian ad litem of) v. British Columbia (Attorney General). ARCH intervenes on behalf of CACL and CCD to explore the equality guarantee in the Charter and its violation by the denial of government-funded disability-related supports and other mechanisms that promote social inclusion, equal citizenship and participation of persons with disabilities.

Ontario passes Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act

Hilewitz v. Canada at the Supreme Court of Canada. ARCH represented interveners the discriminatory history behind immigration legislation and argued for the valued of dignity, inclusion and accommodation

"The significance of independent judicial review of state action when a vulnerable adult has been deprived, at the instigation of the state, of the right to function autonomously, cannot be overstated. The court’s statutorily assigned supervisory role emerges from the adult’s vulnerability. The corollary of a judicial determination that an adult is in need of protection is a corresponding limitation on that adult’s autonomous decision making and liberty. It is the function of the court to monitor the scope of that limitation. The legislation must, therefore, be interpreted in a way which acknowledges the intrusiveness of the determination and offers muscular protection from state intervention incompatible with the adult’s welfare. Section 9(3)(c) should not be applied in a way that frustrates that responsibility."

- Nova Scotia (Minister of Health) v. J.J., [2005] 1 S.C.R. 177, 2005 SCC 12, at para 23

Canada signs the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It is ratified in 2010.

"Article 12 

Equal recognition before the law

1. States Parties reaffirm that persons with disabilities have the right to recognition everywhere as persons before the law.
2. States Parties shall recognize that persons with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life.
3. States Parties shall take appropriate measures to provide access by persons with disabilities to the support they may require in exercising their legal capacity.
4. States Parties shall ensure that all measures that relate to the exercise of legal capacity provide for appropriate and effective safeguards to prevent abuse in accordance with international human rights law. Such safeguards shall ensure that measures relating to the exercise of legal capacity respect the rights, will and preferences of the person, are free of conflict of interest and undue influence, are proportional and tailored to the person’s circumstances, apply for the shortest time possible and are subject to regular review by a competent, independent and impartial authority or judicial body. The safeguards shall be proportional to the degree to which such measures affect the person’s rights and interests."

- United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Apology issued by the Government of Ontario after the Settlement Agreement is signed for the Class Action in which ARCH represented survivors of three government institutions.

Apology December 9th 2013 PDF

Premier Apology