Under a settlement, Alberta will pay approximately $100,000 to each of the victims who were sterilised while in mental institutions. Most of them are still in care.

About 300 further claims have still to be resolved.

More than 2,000 people were sterilised in Alberta under a law aimed at stopping the genetic transmission of mental disabilities.

The policy was in force over a period of 40 years but finally abandoned in 1972.

Many of the claimants have severe mental disabilities, but others are said to have little or no mental handicaps.

In 1996, a judge awarded compensation to an Alberta woman whose Fallopian tubes were removed without her knowledge in 1959.

The woman was sterilised but told by nurses that she was having her appendix removed. She was later found to be of normal intelligence.

The case opened the gates for several hundred other sterilisation victims who launched similar lawsuits against Alberta.

Peter Owen, the victims' trustee, said Friday's settlement represented the best option for most of the people he represented because exposing them to a long court process would have prolonged their suffering.