Some of the major achievements of the UFA government
include successful negotiation with the Mackenzie King
government for Alberta to control its own natural resources;
the sale of the northern railways for a good sum, thus
ridding the government of an ongoing problem; and the
establishment of Mutual Telephone Companies in rural areas,
a cooperative approach that turned the telephone system from
a financially impractical operation into an effective
service.
Although Irene Parlby gave her advice on these issues,
her personal influence was more apparent in issues that were
more domestic in nature. As well as health care, she was
interested in legislation regarding the legal status of
married women, and education.
Parlby sponsored the Minimum Wage for Women Act, which
was passed in 1925. She was responsible for an amendment
regarding the support of children of unmarried parents,
which in cases when paternity was not clearly established,
gave the trial judge power to make one, or all, of the men
who might have fathered the child to pay for its support.
Parlby and Nellie McClung worked closely together on
women's issues, such as marital and property disputes, and
loss of nationality [through marriage]. During their tenure,
the UFA government passed 18 acts relating to the welfare of
women and children including a new Dower Act, protecting the
interests of the wife in case her husband attempted to sell
her home; a bill to increase Mothers' Allowance—which
assured a reasonable income to a single mother; and an act
declaring illegitimate children, whose parents later
married, to be legitimate.
The UFA also introduced, though it did not implement, the
most progressive school bill in Canada. To help formulate
this bill, members of the Department of Education travelled
to acquaint themselves with educational systems in other
countries. Parlby was one such researcher, going on a
government mission to Britain and Scandinavian countries to
observe their educational systems.
The new bill would have surpassed the UFA's early goals
for education, provisioning for every child in Alberta to
complete (at least) Grade 8; schools to operate 160 days or
more per year; increased availability of school books; more
two-room schools to be built to reduce crowding; and the
establishment of rural high schools. Rather than over 3,000
individual school districts, each operated by a school
board, there were to be 20 divisions, including 150
districts each. A Superintendent and two supervisors would
supervise each division, and teacher salaries and hiring
procedures would be standardized. Teachers with special
qualifications would be hired to teach specialized classes
like art, music, languages, etc.
The UFA introduced the bill twice, with Parlby as its
seconder, but it did not pass and the UFA did not force it
through. Despite the difficulties the UFA government
experienced with this bill, in an ironic twist, it
eventually did become law when the Social Credit government
that replaced the UFA forced the bill through.
One particularly controversial bill was the Sexual
Sterilization Act for Mental Defectives. Since "mental
deficiency" was believed to be almost completely hereditary,
many felt that young people with mental disabilities should
be sterilized—to ensure that they would not have mentally
deficient children.
This Bill provided for the sterilization of those young
people recommended by the Eugenics Board—with the permission
of the child's parents or guardians. |