Dr. C. Hincks' Mental Hygiene Survey of the Province of Alberta is released

1921. Dr. C. Hincks, a professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, published Mental Hygiene Survey of the Province of Alberta upon the request of the provincial government. This report contributed to the eugenic movement in the province, specifically regarding immigrant populations, which eventually led to the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta in 1929. Hincks, living with mental illness himself, was very interested in the field of mental health. He founded the Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene in 1918, which included the goal of touring mental institutions and consulting with provincial representatives.

The 1921 publication of the survey on mental health in Alberta addressed the “problem of mental defectiveness in the province” and also the effect of immigration on mental health. Dr. Hincks stressed the importance of monitoring the “quality of incoming immigrants” and he wrote that although most Albertans were Canadian born by 1916, “their proportion [was] considerably less in the Mental Hospital, Ponoka, the jails and the institutions caring for unmarried mothers. In other words, immigrants . . . contributed more than their fair share to the insane and feeble-minded population, and to other undesirable groups.” Independently, Hincks expressed that sexual sterilization ought to be used as a type of public health intervention (Hincks, 1946).

Historian Ian Dowbiggin contends that the anxieties over the immigrant population – an anxiety which was supported by Dr. Hincks’ survey - accelerated the eugenics movement in the province.

-Sheila Gibbons

  • Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene. (1921). Mental Hygiene Survey of the Province of Alberta Conducted by the Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene in the Months of October and November, 1921.

  • History of the CMHA. (n.d.). Canadian Mental Health Association website. Retrieved from http://www.cmha.ca/about-cmha/history-of-cmha/#.UsWtMfRDvaE.

  • Keith, E. (2011). Human Wreckage from Foreign Lands: a Study of the Ethnic Victims of the Alberta Sterilization Act. Constellations, 2(2).

Dr. C. Hincks' Mental Hygiene Survey of the Province of Alberta is released

1921. Dr. C. Hincks, a professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, published Mental Hygiene Survey of the Province of Alberta upon the request of the provincial government. This report contributed to the eugenic movement in the province, specifically regarding immigrant populations, which eventually led to the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta in 1929. Hincks, living with mental illness himself, was very interested in the field of mental health. He founded the Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene in 1918, which included the goal of touring mental institutions and consulting with provincial representatives.

The 1921 publication of the survey on mental health in Alberta addressed the “problem of mental defectiveness in the province” and also the effect of immigration on mental health. Dr. Hincks stressed the importance of monitoring the “quality of incoming immigrants” and he wrote that although most Albertans were Canadian born by 1916, “their proportion [was] considerably less in the Mental Hospital, Ponoka, the jails and the institutions caring for unmarried mothers. In other words, immigrants . . . contributed more than their fair share to the insane and feeble-minded population, and to other undesirable groups.” Independently, Hincks expressed that sexual sterilization ought to be used as a type of public health intervention (Hincks, 1946).

Historian Ian Dowbiggin contends that the anxieties over the immigrant population – an anxiety which was supported by Dr. Hincks’ survey - accelerated the eugenics movement in the province.

-Sheila Gibbons

  • Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene. (1921). Mental Hygiene Survey of the Province of Alberta Conducted by the Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene in the Months of October and November, 1921.

  • History of the CMHA. (n.d.). Canadian Mental Health Association website. Retrieved from http://www.cmha.ca/about-cmha/history-of-cmha/#.UsWtMfRDvaE.

  • Keith, E. (2011). Human Wreckage from Foreign Lands: a Study of the Ethnic Victims of the Alberta Sterilization Act. Constellations, 2(2).