Dark Poutine - True Crime and Dark History
True crime, legends, folklore, dark history and other creepy topics from the perspective of real live Canadians.
Unnatural Selection — The Alberta Eugenics Act
Episode 424: Between 1928 and 1972, the Alberta government authorized the forced sterilization of nearly 3,000 Albertans deemed "unfit" to reproduce. They were told they were having their appendix removed. Many were children. Most had no idea what was being done to them. The targets were the poor, the mentally ill, Indigenous people, immigrants — anyone who didn't fit the province's vision of a productive society. This wasn't a fringe movement. It was backed by doctors, politicians, newspapers, and some of the most celebrated figures in Canadian history.
Sources:
The Canadian Encyclopedia — Eugenics
History of Rights Canada — Eugenics
Prairie History Journal, University of Alberta
Gladue / University of Saskatchewan — Eugenics Resource
Eugenics Archive Canada — Timeline
Eugenics Archive Canada — Our Stories
City Museum Edmonton — Leilani Muir and Eugenics in Alberta
National Post — When Canada Lost Its Mind Over Eugenics
CBC News — Leilani Muir, Advocate for Alberta's Sterilization Victims, Dies
CBC News — Cash Settlement for Sterilized Women (BC)
Alberta Law Review — Mikkel Dack
Toronto Sun — The Controversial Beliefs of Canada's Famous Five
Wired — CRISPR Babies and Human Genome Editing
Scientific American — The Dark Side of CRISPR
NFB — The Sterilization of Leilani Muir
The Guardian — What Is Pronatalism?
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Podcast Episodes
Left in the Cold: The Winnipeg Homeless Murders
Episode 404: In April 2015, someone began targeting some of the city’s most vulnerable residents: men living rough, sleeping outside, and often already failed by every system meant to protect them. By the time the killin…
The Melady Murders: Canada’s Last Public Hanging
Episode 403: Nicholas Melady Jr. was 24 years old when he stepped onto a wooden scaffold above the stone walls of Goderich Gaol in December of 1869, about to become the central figure in Canada’s last public hanging afte…
Black Friday: The 1987 Edmonton Tornado
Episode 402: On July 31, 1987, an ordinary summer afternoon in Edmonton, Alberta, ended in catastrophe. A powerful tornado cut through the city’s southeast, killing 27 people and leaving entire neighbourhoods destroyed i…
Vancouver’s 1907 Anti-Asian Riots
Episode 401: At the start of the twentieth century, Vancouver, B.C., was a fast-growing Pacific port. Most residents were white settlers of British or European descent, but Chinese and Japanese communities were already w…
The Clara Ford Affair: Race, Rumour, and the Shooting of Frank Westwood
Episode 400: In October 1894, 18-year-old Frank Westwood was shot on the doorstep of his Parkdale home. The killing shocked Toronto and sparked a frantic search for a suspect. Weeks later, a mixed-race tailor named Clara…
Out With the Old: The Dark and Weird Side of New Year’s Traditions
Episode 399: As the clock strikes midnight, not everyone welcomes the New Year with champagne and resolutions. In this episode of Dark Poutine, we explore the darker, stranger, and sometimes dangerous traditions used aro…
Christmas Special 2025: The Great Canadian Butter Tart Heist
Episode 398: It was supposed to be a quiet Canadian Christmas—until every butter tart in the country vanished overnight. From Nanaimo to Newfoundland, kitchens were left empty, bakers bewildered, and the RCMP at a loss.…
Demon of the Belfry: The Murders of Blanch Lamont and Minnie Williams
Episode 397: In April 1895, two young women, both twenty-one, from San Francisco’s Emmanuel Baptist Church vanished days apart. Blanche Lamont, a dedicated teacher-in-training, and Minnie Williams, a hardworking domestic…
Road Trip: Deadly Prophecy — The Children of Thunder
Episode 396: In this episode, we learn about an enigmatic narcissistic psychopath who led the Californian cult called The Children of Thunder. Glenn Taylor Helzer, and the other leadership was comprised of his brother Ju…
Bound by Silence: The Murder of Dr. Edith Wightman
Episode 395: On a cold December day in 1983, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, was shaken by a deeply unsettling crime. Dr. Edith Wightman, a respected scholar, was discovered dead in her office: bound with tape,…
