History of Forced/Coerced Sterilization
1850-1900
Infirmaries and Indian hospitals were built to control epidemics and to segregate Indigenous people from settler populations.
1890s
1900-1950
Enforced sterilization was first passed into law in Canada in 1928 with Alberta's Sexual Sterilization Act.
1928
1933
British Columbia followed a few years later, not repealing the law until 1979.
1930s
Sterilization is documented in Residential Schools in Canada and the U.S.
1950-2000
1966
Sterilization program documented in northern Canada, with at least 1100 documented sterilizations.
Explicit language shifting sterilization away from "feeble minded" to Indigenous women (i.e., women without status with children in child welfare system).
1960s
Legalization of birth control and abortion in Canada.
1969
1972
Alberta repeals the Sexual Sterilization Act.
The federal government conducts an internal inquiry into sterilization in northern Canada.
1976
Leilani Muir sued the Province of Alberta for forcing her to be sterilized against her will and without her permission in 1959. Results in compensation for over 700 hundred Alberta survivors.
1995
Leilani Muir sues the Province of Alberta for forcing her to be sterilized against her will and without her permission in 1959. Results in compensation for over 700 Alberta survivors.
1995
2000-Present
Release of the interagency statement on “Eliminating forced, coercive and otherwise involuntary sterilization.”
2014
Indigenous women in Saskatchewan publicly speak out about forced/coerced sterilization at the Royal University Hospital.
2015
2016
Saskatoon Health Region approaches Yvonne Boyer & Dr. Judith Bartlett to do internal review.
2018
Yvonne Boyer named to the Senate of Canada.
2019
Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights releases Forced and Coerced Sterilization Report.
Senator Yvonne Boyer introduces Bill S-250: An Act to amend the Criminal Code (Sterilization Procedures).
2022
2022
UQAT releases report on imposed sterilization of First Nation & Inuit Women in Quebec.
2023
The Survivors Circle for Reproductive Justice incorporated at Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory.
The Survivors Circle for Reproductive Justice to launch healing supports, public education, national archive.