Tommy Douglas – A Preacher turned Politician

The factual account of a man who changed the world’s thoughts better or worse on Healthcare

Tommy Douglas had a new vision for the role of government; he believed that it had the responsibility to improve the lives of ordinary people.  The people within Saskatchewan had faired a very tough times, Farmers were working hard but prices for agricultural products were kept low with the aid to the war effort. Coupled with the Depression of the 1930s which has left at that time an agriculture based province in a poor status. Most farms still had no electricity and a bad crops lead to many loosing their lands. Health matters were often placed off as the expense as well could lead to destitution. As a preacher, Tommy Douglas had seen the suffering first hand he lived and resided in Saskatchewan, Canada. As Douglas saw it over and over there were people dropped off at the hospital waiting room while another member of the family would leave in pursuit to borrow and even beg from family and friends for the necessary few dollars to enable the proper health care. The ability to pay the bill was the most what he saw as a breach of the health practice. Many had simply died while waiting to be able to afford service.  Douglas buried a 14 year old young lady whom died due to merely a ruptured appendix and as I quote from the archives of Tommy Douglas, “I buried a good many people that I knew and some which I loved.” As a politician, he believed he knew of a vision that would change to current system which Canada had adapted. By the middle of the Second World War, Douglas had become the leader of the Saskatchewan CCF.

Reference to the term CCF:  In 1932, various farmers, labor and socialist parties of Canada's western provinces joined to create Canada's first national socialist movement which was called the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, the CCF.

In the spring of 1944, Canada’s ruling Liberals called an election. The economic turnaround during the war had left many Canadians disillusioned with traditional government. They wondered why the federal government had so much trouble solving the country’s ills during the Depression but found the money when war erupted. Tommy Douglas appealed to the disillusioned masses not only in Saskatchewan but throughout Canada’s mainstream. While many Canadians found hope in Douglas' vision, others reacted against the new ideas. Douglas and the CCF were subject to unprecedented attacks during a vicious election campaign in spring 1944. The country’s leading capitalists, including the heads of Imperial Oil, Noranda Mines, International Nickel and Massey-Harris formed a committee to battle the CCF. The large department store chain, Simpsons Sears, offered its catalogue mailing system for the distribution of anti-CCF propaganda. Many political opponents at the time denounced Douglas’ medical vision not by the healthcare project but with the political party he belonged to as indicating that the CCF was affiliate with Hitler’s political agenda without the emblem of the swastika. Mortgage companies openly campaigned against the CCF when Douglas promised to immediately enact a law protecting farmers from foreclosures.  Land agents for these mortgage and trust companies were contacting debt ridden farmers and telling them that if a CCF government were elected, before we could pass any legislation, they would foreclose on several farmers’ mortgages," remembered Douglas. The media also turned against Douglas. When a Gallup Poll predicted a CCF victory, Saskatchewan papers refused to print the report. Yet on the eve of the election, The Regina Leader Post editorial warned about the implications of a CCF victory, "The election result would affect vitally the way of living of every individual, will affect the right to own and use property and would decide whether a stultifying dictatorial system would be imposed."Despite the vicious campaign against the CCF, on June 15, 1944 Tommy Douglas and the people of Saskatchewan made history. The first socialist government in North America was elected. Note Western Canada was a socialized party yet later on it went on to be The New Democratic Party.

One of Douglass first acts as Premier was to bring in free medical and hospital care for pensioners, those on government support and for cancer patients. By 1962, still under Douglas' leadership, Saskatchewan enacted the first Medicare plan - Universal Publicly Funded Medical Insurance. The 1944 election victory signaled changes for the rest of Canada. In Ottawa, Prime Minister Mackenzie King had already felt the political tide turning left. "In my heart I am not sorry to see the mass of the people coming a little more into their own, but I do regret that it is not a Liberal party that is winning that position. What I fear is that we will begin to have defection from our own ranks in the House to the CCF."Ottawa civil servants had already produced a blueprint for the post-war era - comprehensive social security for Canadians from infancy to old age, including a national health insurance, universal old age pensions and maternity allowances. As a first step, mothers received a family allowance of five to eight dollars for each child under the age of 16. Mind you, Canadians would have to wait years for more generous old age pensions and health care, but modern social security had been born the first of its kind which some countries looked to adapt. Tommy Douglas moved to federal politics in the early 1960s and served as leader of the New Democratic Party until 1971. He brought into play not just the so misunderstood current health care system within Canada, but as well the first old age pensions of its kind as well as the allowance for families with children. Which have progressed within the last two decades and more so within the last five years.

End Note:

Many Tommy Douglas is associated with Universal Health Coverage. It has changed and made adaptations since the merit of its reasoning. Yet Douglas, was first a man of faith which then went into the government to enable the healthcare act which left no citizen within the nation having to go broke in time after the Great Depression. The blueprints of Tommy’s plan have been studied by many nations as it was the first which might have been ahead of it’s time. As well within Canada there is now a two tier system among most all provinces within Canada while there are private practices as well.