Michener Centre and Premier Jim Prentice

Red Deer Michener Centre: What they found when they actually came into the institution was really, there was no education, it was more like a warehouse," said Malacrida, according to CBC. The Michener Centre opened in 1923 and was set to close in 2013, but Premier Jim Prentice reversed that decision shortly after taking office. Residents get to still call Michener Centre home, Premier Jim Prentice haults shut down Deaths of former Michener Centre residents prompt calls for investigation Rally held in Red Deer for Michener Centre It had first been a school for girls, then a home for shell-shocked soldiers. A Special Hell: Institutional Life in Alberta Eugenic Years contains interviews with residents who were housed in the Red Deer institution between the 1950s and 1980s. "A lot of new immigrants and those marginalized by poverty," said author Claudia Malacrida, who also spoke to former employees of the Michener Centre. "And they were promised education. Once the Sexual Sterilization Act was enacted in Alberta in 1928, the Michener Centre became a residence for people deemed "mentally defective or psychotic," says Malacrida. To prevent them from having children with similar developmental disabilities, between 1928 and 1972 the Alberta government sterilized approximately 2,800 people. Then came involuntary sterilization. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.