Career
She was a noted “country life advocate” and detested cities. During the 1920s the UFWA was an ardent supporter of legislation in Alberta requiring the forced sterilization of those deemed mentally defective or feebleminded and it became one of its most active and powerful lobbying forces. Due partly to the UFWA’s effectiveness in garnering widespread favorable public opinion for forced sterilization, the Sexual Sterilization Acting of Alberta was enacted and the Alberta Eugenics Board was subsequently formed for the purpose of administering sterilizations.
Margaret Gunn was at the forefront of this sterilization crusade.
In her 1924 presidential address to the UFWA, she called for the government to pursue a policy of ‘‘racial betterment through the weeding out of undesirable strains’’ since, as she argued, ‘democracy was never intended for degenerates’’’. In the following year, the United Farmers of Alberta passed a resolution calling for mandatory sterilization of the mentally unfit in order to prevent them “from reproducing their kind."
– from being born into such communities.
As Gunn argued, the constant procreation of derelicts would “lower the vitality of our civilization” and had to be prevented. As she noted regarding the activities of the junior league of the UFWA and the United Farmers of Alberta, “all this co-operative study, co-operative work, co-operative play, is merely building for the future co-operative community.
Boys and girls trained in this group activity are learning…how to work with others to mutual advantage, are practicing the co-operative principle, and are discarding the competitive system.".
