This is no Heritage Minute. After all, Canada doesn’t look very good when it comes to the story of Velma Demerson.

OK, so it was 1939. But the story is still shocking: Eighteen-years-old and pregnant, Velma Demerson was arrested for living with her Chinese-Canadian boyfriend to whom she was engaged. She was convicted under the Female Refuges Act, sentenced to a year at an institution for women.

The Act came about in the late 1800s and was designed to “protect” women between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five. Promiscuity, illegitimate pregnancy and the suspicion of venereal disease were all convictable under the law, which stayed on the books until 1964.

Velma married her boyfriend, Harry, after serving ten months in a reformatory and together they raised their child, Harry Jr.

Now, sixty-three years later, Velma is seeking justice, and compensation. She is suing the Ontario government for 11 million dollars — and an apology.

rabble interviewer Leisha Grebinski spoke with Velma, now eighty-one, by phone to find out more.

Leisha Grebinski: How were you sentenced under the Female Refuges Act?

Velma Demerson: I was sentenced as “incorrigible.” In 1919, they introduced a section which didn’t include having to commit a criminal offence but was for the “incorrigible, idle or dissolute.”

That, of course, had to do with the fact that I was living with a Chinese-Canadian man. It was a big disgrace to my family that this should happen.

My parents were divorced. My mother was here in Toronto. She knew I was going around with him, but I didn’t bring him to the house and she didn’t take me seriously. I went on a trip and when I came back, I went to stay with him, I didn’t go back to my mother’s. My mother was upset. She didn’t notify the police, but she notified my father. He went to the police.

My father was more threatened because he was Greek and he was a businessman. His community would have laughed at him. So, my father had me put away.

At the time, in Ontario, there was a law where white women couldn’t work in Chinese restaurants or in Chinese establishments. They were trying to keep white women separate so they wouldn’t have children with Chinese men.

Grebinski: How did women feel about the Female Refuges Act?

Demerson: Women didn’t know about it. At least I certainly didn’t. And this was the problem. I mean I would have been really careful if I had known. I would have made sure I was married before I moved in. Maybe I could have avoided getting arrested. If you didn’t get reported, you’d be okay. But anyone twenty-one-years or over could report a woman for promiscuous behaviour.

Grebinski: You were sentenced to one year in custody? Describe where you were sent.

Demerson: First I was sent to the Belmont Home for women in Toronto. We slept in dormitories and the food wasn’t bad. It was when we were transferred to the Mercer Reformatory that it was bad.

We were put into barred cells with no windows, seven-by-four feet. We were only allowed to speak for an hour a day — one half-an-hour after dinner at midday and another after supper in the evening. So, we spent long hours in our cells with nothing to do. They also had a laundry that we worked in. We were paid six cents a day.

Grebinski: How long were you in custody?

Demerson: All together, I did ten months. The queen passed through near the end and I got thirty days off my sentence.

Grebinski: What about your child? You were you pregnant when they arrested you.

Demerson: Yes. Four of us girls at the Belmont Home were pregnant. They sent us out to give birth. I was eighteen hours in labour, alone in a room.

I ran away from the hospital after that when I realized I was going back to the reformatory. I nursed my baby, and then I ran out at night and went looking for my boyfriend. I couldn’t find him and then I went to my mother’s. My mother returned me to the hospital.

Naturally, when someone runs away there is an investigation. Generally speaking, they would have given me more time, but it came out that I was being treated in a very aggressive manner. So, they just let it drop.

Grebinski: Were you treated more aggressively than the others?

Demerson: Yes, two of us girls were treated worse. It was known that my baby’s father was of Chinese origin. The other girl had a hearing problem. The reformatory doctor belonged to a Eugenic organization.

Grebinski: It’s been over sixty years, why have you decided to demand compensation and an apology from the government now?

Demerson: The Freedom of Information Act came out in 1987 and I started doing my research in 1989 to get my documents. I didn’t get a case file until 1993. They had to find these things in the archives. In 1996, I got a report that had evidence as to how I was treated in the Mercer Reformatory. So, then I was in a position to do something.

Grebinski: Do you expect to be successful?

Demerson: I don’t know but I tend to feel that they won’t give me a chance to tell my case in court. They came up with this new ruling that no case could proceed against the Crown that happened before 1964. This blocked my case from going to the courts. The question is whether I will try to join in the appeal to that ruling. I would be very surprised if the ruling is overturned, though — there would be so much stuff coming up from other people who have been abused.

Grebinski: The Female Refuges Act wasn’t repealed until 1964. That’s a little shocking.

Demerson: I think it is absolutely outrageous. I found a document in the archives from 1941 in which it was admitted that we shouldn’t have been arrested, we didn’t have a right of appeal and so forth. But they continued to allow women to be arrested.

Grebinski: What impact does your story have on women today?

Demerson: Well, I think that women don’t know this history. They don’t know the history of their mothers and their grandmothers. It’s a question of awareness. If you know what happened before, you can follow the threads of history, right until the present time. The legislation of the past, it stays. It’s like racism. The racist laws against the Chinese may have been repealed, but there is still racism today.