EDMONTON, Mar 11 (LSN) – Alberta Premier Ralph Klein has opted for the extreme measure of invoking the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to restrict compensation for 700 people who were made infertile under government sterilization policies between 1928 and 1972. The legislation unveiled yesterday would force the courts to limit possible future court awards to a maximum of $150,000 for each of the 700 victims who were classed as “mental defectives”. They were made sterile on the order of a government-appointed eugenics board to ensure they could not produce “defective children.” This very rare use of the notwithstanding clause would prevent victims from challenging the limit of compensation as a violation of their equality rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Interestingly, another provincial Tory leader, Mike Harris, has agreed to pay the surviving Dionne quintuplets one million dollars each for the unjust treatment they received from a previous Ontario government many years ago. Also, it is ironic that the NDP and Liberals are reacting with outrage to this situation since they support the killing of “defective children” in their mothers' wombs.