Notice Board

Jane Harris (Harris-Zsovan) has a forthcoming book and a new website: janeharrisbooks.wordpress.com. Her new book, Finding Home in the Promised Land, a personal history of homelessness and social exile in Canada is being published by J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing. It will  be out by Fall 2015.

SEPTEMBER RELEASE UPDATE: Finding Home in the Promised Land: A Personal History of Homelessness and Social Exile is the fruit of Jane Harris’s journey through the wilderness of social exile after a violent crime left her injured and tumbling down the social ladder toward homelessness –for the second time in her life—in 2013. Her Scottish great-great grandmother Barbara`s portrait opens the door into pre-Confederation Canada. Her own story lights our journey through 21st Century Canada.

She asks why Canadians fell into accepting diminished dreams, and ignoring the obvious—that trauma and poverty are inextricably linked, and it is social exiles who fall through the cracks. She asks why Canada, a nation of exiles driven to create their own Promised Land came to accept first poor houses; then soup kitchens, food banks, shelters, and silent suffering class of working poor? Why did charity, another word for love, become cold bureaucracy? She uncovers that sad truth, that the taxes and charitable gifts the prosperous among us pay as tolls to avoid looking at the poor, fix nothing. Instead, they fund a poverty industry that keeps the dispossessed in an exile thornier than any back bush squatter’s camp. But she also uncovers a path out of the bureaucratic wilderness that could eliminate social exile in Canada.

Jane Harris turns complex research into engaging scenes and easily understood messages.Finding Home in the Promised Land is her second book to be published by J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing. The first Eugenics and the Firewall: Canada’s Nasty Little Secret was published in 2010.
Jane has also contributed to two Canadian anthologies. Her articles about business, personal finance, history, faith, politics and social issues have appeared in more than a dozen publications including the Winnipeg Free Press, Canadian Capital, The National Post, Alberta Views, Alberta Venture, Lethbridge Herald, and The Anglican Planet.
She is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta.

Canadian Books J.Gordon Shillingford Publishing

J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing has an updated website. LOVE IT! This means you can now purchase Eugenics and the Firewall directly from the publisher.

Creative Writing I Starts October 22

It's a go. Creative Writing I starts October 22nd at Lethbridge College. Register for the workshop online, in-person, or by telephone.

Smart, Disciplined Online Shopping

Yes, it is  to overspend, but can turn online shopping into a cost cutting tool.  This week's Cutting Corners column, published by Troy Media:

Public libraries & ending poverty

Cutting Corners is financial advice for the real world. It goes right along with my concern for the disadvantaged and increasing equality of opportunity -- principles that motivated me to write Eugenics and the Firewall. Those principles inform my current works-in-progress. This week, we go to the library: http://www.troymedia.com/2013/09/04/how-the-library-helps-you-cut-corners/

I tweeted this earlier:

Author Encounter, Crossings Library, Tuesday night; Jane Harris-Zsovan, Blaine Greenwood, Richard Stevenson, and Ken Sears.

It’s all part of the only Word on the Street to take place in Alberta, 25 September.

Here is Lethbridge’s Word on the Street Blog. (I’m also participating in that event.)

Arts Days, including Art Walk and Arts Fest, are the following week. I’m also doing a reading there, but haven’t got all the details, yet.

Come one; come all to the only city in Canada, co-founded by Father of Confederation, who just happens to be the son of the Scottish poet who founded Guelph and wrote my favourite poem, "Canadian Reflections." We love talking books down here!

Click on the Word on the Street icon on Shaw TV's website to watch Dan Clovis, Shaw TV Lethbridge, interview Colette Acheson, Project Manager Word on the Street Lethbridge, and me about writing, books, and what's in store at Word on the Street 25 September,11am to 5pm, at the Lethbridge Public Library and on the adjoining streets.

(There's also a good screen shot of my books, Eugenics and the Firewall: Canada's Nasty Little Secret and Stars Appearing: The Galts' Vision of Canada, included in this footage.But stay away from the Chinese website on the Stars Appearing link. That book is still available through Volumes Direct.

Eugenics & the Firewall is published by J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing, Inc., represented by the Literary Press Group of Canada, and distributed through U of T press. It's available online, in university bookstores, independent bookstores,and through chains such as Chapters. McNally Robinson, Audreys, Pages, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, & Booktopia also sell Eugenics & the Firewall.)

If you’re interested, here’s my newly posted Writers’ Union of Canada web page. Very proud to be a member of both the Writers’ Union of Canada and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, as well as the Allied Arts Council of Lethbridge.

Word on the Street Lethbridge

Here's a heads up. It's not on the website yet, but I will be one of the authors participating in Word on the Street in Lethbridge, Alberta 25 September 2011.

Word on the Street is a national celebration of reading and advocating literacy. It`s held in cities across Canada every September.

Other Word on the Street Festivals will be held in Vancouver,B.C., Saskatoon,Sask., Kitchener, Ont., Toronto, Ont., and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Lethbridge is the only Word on the Street location in Alberta this year. Come on down!

Word on the Street Lethbridge

Here's a heads up. It's not on the website yet, but I will be one of the authors participating in Word on the Street in Lethbridge, Alberta 25 September 2011.

Word on the Street is a national celebration of reading and advocating literacy. It`s held in cities across Canada every September.

Other Word on the Street Festivals will be held in Vancouver,B.C., Saskatoon,Sask., Kitchener, Ont., Toronto, Ont., and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Lethbridge is the only Word on the Street location in Alberta this year. Come on down!

Part three: Don`t blame the athiests and the CCF on eugenics disasters. Everybody loved it (except the disadvantaged)!

Part Three of my interview with Denyse O'Leary is up. The people who blame eugenics on a progressive ideas and social programs are going to hate what I say here:

"It`s not our progressive heritage that made the eugenics scandal possible. It`s the dark side of populism. The self-righteous pack mentality, that allows the grassroots to demand that the rights of the socially, morally or economically defective be violated by the government. Or that turns its back when it sees these rights violated.That mindset made the Sexual Sterilization Act a political necessity under the UFA and the Social Credit administrations. It allowed it to exist for forty years. It also made racial segregation and forced sterilization of defectives and `criminals`thrive in the United States for decades. And it turned a blind eye when Hitler disbanded the German Parliament and began his holocaust of innocents.``

Ahh, well, the anti-progressive types who want to remake Alberta into Texas north didn`t like me much, anyway, before I said this. So, I won`t feel much of a loss. Oh and they will absolutely hate this:

``But apparently, we still aren`t supposed mention the fact that most churches and respectable businessmen and women endorsed forced sterilization for reasons as varied as morality to the costs of housing the mentality ill. Worse yet, some national columnists keep insisting that it was only the CCF and the atheists who supported eugenics in Canada. Rubbish.``

Key Quotes from my latest media interview on eugenics

Denyse O'Leary took a big risk interviewing me for her blog. For one thing, many of her ID and faith based audiences won't like what I have to say about who supported eugenics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: "Eugenics was widely accepted by the business, academic, medical and political establishment. Preachers – in evangelical and mainline churches – even preached it from the pulpit." Nor will their opponents: "You can believe something, insist it’s scientific and proven, and be totally wrong. Atheists and religious people are equally vulnerable to this error."

Many more won't like what I tell Denyse her about the political culture in Alberta: "Well, I think it’s the mindset that Albertans have – that we’re pretty much on the side of right. And we have this terrible poverty mentality hanging on from the pre-oil industry days. The big cars, big houses, and rampant materialism are just symptoms of the fact that we “never want to be the poor men and women of Confederation again.”

Still more of the province's political and business hacks will gag on what I say about the the province's failed attempt to use the notwithstanding clause in the Canada Act to prevent the victims of the Alberta Eugenics board from getting compensation in the 1990's:"God help anyone who threatens to take any of it away in a lawsuit. We certainly don`t want to look at the dark side of populism—the pack mentality that overrides the opinions and rights of your political opponents and of the weak."

Part Three will be posted soon.Stayed tuned.

"New Light on Alberta's Dark Past" in Calgary Herald

Eugenics and the Firewall was profiled by Eric Volmers in “New Light on Alberta’s Dark Past” in the Calgary Herald yesterday. This article also appeared in the Regina Leader Post online and Canada.com network.

Media Release Author Signing Eugenics and the Firewall

MEDIA RELEASE:

Harris-Zsovan to Sign Copies of Eugenics and the Firewall at Chapters Lethbridge 12 March 2011

Release: 07 March 2011

LETHBRIDGE -- Lethbridge author Jane Harris-Zsovan, will sign copies of Eugenics and the Firewall: Canada's Nasty Little Secret at Chapters,701 Ist Avenue South, Lethbridge, Alberta, Saturday, March 12, 11:00am-5:30pm. The book is published J. Gordon Shillingford and Distributed by University of Toronto Press. J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing is primarily a literary publisher that publishes theatre, poetry, Canadian social history, politics, religion, true crime, and biography. Website: jgshillingford.com.

Jane Harris-Zsovan is a Canadian author and journalist based in Lethbridge, Alberta. She writes for national and regional periodicals about business, faith, politics, history and contemporary issues. Her books include Eugenics and the Firewall: Canada’s Nasty Little Secret and Stars Appearing: The Galts’ Vision of Canada.

It's a dirty little secret the heirs to Alberta’s populist legacy don’t want Canadians to talk about. In 1928, the non-partisan United Farmers of Alberta passed the first Sexual Sterilization Act. The UFA’s successor, the Social Credit Party, led by radio evangelist William Aberhart, and later by his protégé Ernest Manning, removed the need to obtain consent to sterilize “mental defectives” or Huntington’s Chorea patients with dementia.

Between 1928 and 1972 nearly three thousand citizens were sterilized, lied to, experimented on, and subjected to daily abuse at hands of provincial staff in Alberta.

Most Albertans have forgotten the victims whose names made headlines in the 1990s, and politicians and pundits have shown little empathy for the victims. Eugenics and the Firewall: Canada`s Nasty Little Secret sets the record straight.

“It`s a valuable addition to modern Canadian historical studies. I hope it comes to the attention of professors, so that it can be included in reading lists. One of the most important aspects, as you can tell from the review, is your inclusion of the modern debate on eugenic practices.” Ian Stewart, Writer, Book Reviewer for the Winnipeg Free Press.

``Difficult Subjects`` discusses Eugenics and the Firewall

Here is the link to "Difficult Subjects", written by Samantha Power, of VUE Weekly in Edmonton, Alberta Canada.

Eugenics and the Firewall is featured in this article: The difficult subject is Alberta's Eugenics Scandal. We're good Canadians here.

We don`t think it`s 'good manners' to talk about the skeletons in our closets. But we need to, sometimes, in order not to repeat our mistakes. That's why I wrote Eugenics and the Firewall: Canada's Nasty Little Secret. Samantha Power does a good job with this article, and a good job of explaining why I wrote Eugenics and the Firewall.

``Difficult Subjects`` discusses Eugenics and the Firewall

Here is the link to "Difficult Subjects", written by Samantha Power, of VUE Weekly in Edmonton, Alberta Canada.

Eugenics and the Firewall is featured in this article: The difficult subject is Alberta's Eugenics Scandal. We're good Canadians here.

We don`t think it`s 'good manners' to talk about the skeletons in our closets. But we need to, sometimes, in order not to repeat our mistakes. That's why I wrote Eugenics and the Firewall: Canada's Nasty Little Secret. Samantha Power does a good job with this article, and a good job of explaining why I wrote Eugenics and the Firewall.

My interview in ArtsBridge now posted.

The Spring/Summer 2011 ArtsBridge is out. Ashley Markus interviewed me about Eugenics and the Firewall: Canada’s Nasty Little Secret. Read it on my wordpress blog: Click the JHZ artsbridge interview link. Then click on the icon that appears. Article will appear.)

Or better yet, eliminate all the icon clicking. Just click here: "Shining Light on Alberta's Eugenics Past" here:

Setting Up Spring Signings

I'll be signing copies of Eugenics and the Firewall: Canada's Nasty Little Secret 12 March 2011 at Chapters in Lethbridge. More details on this and other upcoming events to come..

It's time the right owned up to Alberta's eugenics horror story.

A friend emailed me this column by Michael Coren, a man esteemed in Canada's Conservative and Christian intellectual circles. Judging by his CV, Coren is a smart man, but if "The Barbaric Vision of Progressive Heroes" is any indication, it appears Coren only knows part of Canada's eugenics story.(The part his Socred, turned PC, turned Reform, turned Tory/WRA -- or whatever they're calling themselves this week-- buddies from Alberta aren't afraid to hear guys like Coren talking about.)

It's the part he thinks the 'progressives' were responsible for. An aside, Coren might be surprised to know just what progressive meant to early 20th century prairie populists. Ernest Manning, whom most conservative types from Toronto think was one of them,considered himself proudly progressive as well as conservative. As did and do most prairie folk.

But in Coren's discussion, progressive appears to mean left-wing, socialist, or a member of the 'godless' CCF. (By the way, the father of the CCF Tommy Douglas, Preacher and Premier of Saskatchewan, was a social conservative, fire and brimstone Baptist just like Premier of Alberta and radio pastor, Ernest Manning and his mentor, William Aberhart were.)

But why does Coren's discussion of Canadian eugenics omit the worst forced sterilization scandal in the British Empire (Commonwealth), the one in which nearly 3000 Albertans were sterilized at the hands of the provincial eugenics board? (Another 1900 were ordered sterilized, but escaped the knife.) Vulnerable Albertans were also lied to, beaten, used a cheap domestic labour, and made guinea pigs.

He references Douglas's university paper, "The Problems of the Sub-Normal Family," in which Douglas appears to favour legalization of sterilization for 'sub-normals' as a means to remedy illegitimacy and poverty. (Douglas's paper is vague and leave quite a few logical gaps. He's not clear whether this sterilization is to be voluntary or forced or if it is to apply to adults who already have children.)

But Coren fails to acknowledge that, when Douglas became Premier of Saskatchewan, he never set up a provincial eugenics board. Douglas's support for eugenic sterilization was scared out of him during a 1936 trip to Europe. (One look at the rising NAZI tide convinced Douglas that a great evil was loose and that NAZI eugenics would lead to mass murder. He was right and he never forgot the lesson.)

But, as Douglas had his epiphany about NAZI eugenics, Alberta's Social Credit Regime, led by William Aberhart, was hell-bent on ramping up is eugenic sterilization factory by weakening and/or removing consent provisions in the 1928 Sexual Sterilization Act (brought in by the former UFA government.) Aberhart's Socreds -- and many of their constituents -- were frustrated by the low numbers of defectives who were sterilized under the UFA legislation.

After Premier Aberhart died suddenly, his protege, Ernest Manning, became premier. Contrary to a lot of right wing political revisionism, Ernest Manning remained Aberhart's disciple throughout his life. At his 1968 retirement from the premiership, Ernest Manning, declared William Aberhart was ahead of his time and 'one of the greatest men this country ever produced.'

Premier Manning held fast to the Socred's revamped eugenics legislation. Critics of the eugenics board were ignored --or sued. The province's travelling, and virtually unaccountable, appointed eugenics board violated even the weak protections within the law; and the Manning government clung to the Sexual Sterilization Act years after medical and mental health professionals (albeit belatedly) denounced the 'science' behind eugenic sterilization in Alberta.

When I wrote Eugenics and the Firewall: Canada's Nasty Little Secret, I hoped Mr. Coren and his colleagues in the Christian and right wing media would start talking about Alberta's UFA/Socred links to forced sterilization.

So far, no luck. Maybe the Manning legacy is too dear to Canadian evangelicals and the right wing, but surely, telling half the story does a disservice to Conservatism, Canada and Christianity. Doesn't it?

More coverage in the Media (Winnipeg Free Press)

Eugenics and the Firewall: Canada's Nasty Little Secret was reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press 31 December 2010.


I enjoyed reading Ian Stewart's article about my book. Eugenics and the Firewall:Canada's Nasty Little Secret. But I should clarify a couple of things:,
 
In 1921, the United Farmers of Alberta -- a populist party that claimed to have no platform and to be non-partisan -- were elected as the Government of Alberta. (They defeated the Alberta's first political dynasty, the Liberals.) In 1928, the UFA government brought in a Sexual Sterilization Act to allow sterilization, by consent, of patients leaving mental hospitals. 
 
The surprise election of the William Aberhart and his Socred followers, in 1935, that led to the weakening of consent provisions  in the Sexual Sterilization Act (eliminating the need for consent for several classes of Albertans) and allowed the Eugenics Board to travel the province seeking defectives in every nook and cranny. (Complaints about the eugenics board, foster care system, or social services were viewed with distain by the governing Social Credit MLAs. In fact, at one point, the Manning Government sued the IODE for publishing complaints about Alberta Social Services.) 
 
The Social Credit led Government of Alberta allowed the Eugenics Board to break even the weak provisions and restrictions they left in their revamped Sexual Sterilization Act.
 
Both the Socreds and UFA governments claimed to be populist and progressive. Eugenics was considered a 'progessive doctrine' in the early 20th century.
 
2,822 Albertans were sterilized between 1928 and 1972, when the newly elected Progressive Conservatives, led by Peter Lougheed, rescinded the Sexual Sterlization Act. Another 1900 Albertans were approved for sterilization, but escaped the knife. Nobody's quite sure where they went.