ESSAY: TOMMY DOUGLAS AND MEDICARE

 

“We should never, never be afraid or ashamed about dreams. The dreams won’t all come true; we won’t always make it; but where there is no vision a people perish. Where people have no dreams and no hopes and aspirations, life becomes dull and a meaningless wilderness—Tommy Douglas discussing his terms as premier of Saskatchewan 1944-61

 

 

Tommy Douglas (1904-86)

THOMAS ("TOMMY") CLEMENT DOUGLAS was born in 1904 in the small, coal-mining and steel works town of Falkirk, in the central lowland region of Scotland. His father Tom Douglas was an iron moulder at the local iron works. His mother Mary kept house. Tommy inherited a strong work ethic from his father and grandfather who were both supporters of the growing union movement and Labour Party in Britain. As a youth, he learned the power of the spoken word listening to his grandfather recite the poetry of Robbie Burns, many of whose poems he committed to memory. From his mother, a practicing Baptist, came Tommy’s love for religious tradition. The young family migrated to Winnipeg when Tommy was six, retuning briefly to Scotland until the end of WWI. (Tom Douglas, a vetern of the Boer War and now a pacifist, had volunteered as an ambulance driver to help the British war effort.)

 

In Scotland as a youth, Tommy had fallen and injured his leg, with the bone stubbornly refusing to heal properly. Later, while in Winnipeg’s general hospital, he was faced with the prospect of having his leg amputated when, by chance, he came to the notice of a leading bone surgeon who offered to operate on Tommy’s leg free of charge. The family could not afford to pay the surgeon’s fee but he said he would do the operation if it could be part of a teaching seminar. The memory of this time would remain with Tommy all his life, with the experience teaching him how there was a system of medicine for the rich and another one for the poor. In a similar vein, it is interesting to note that Tommy’s father and uncle both experienced how the class system in England limited their prospects of improving their state in life, thus prompting them to emigrate to Canada. And young Tommy, returning with his parents to Scotland during the war years, found he could not roam the surrounding fields and meadows as he had done in Winnipeg. The English “Enclosure Laws” of centuries past had allowed the island nation’s propertied elites to acquire vast landholdings, making much of the countryside in Britain (and particularly Scotland) essentially ‘private property’.  This was another lesson in social inequality that Tommy learned.  

 A seminal moment for Tommy came during the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919,* when he and a friend climbed on the roof of a downtown store and witnessed horsemen of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) charging into the crowd of protesting workers, killing two and injuring dozens of others.  The federal government had been involved in efforts to break the strike, threatening to fire federal workers who joined the protest, as well arresting leaders and union functionaries, including J.S. Woodsworth who would go on to help found the social-democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Party (CCF) in 1932, forerunner of today’s New Democratic Party (NDP), the party that Tommy would lead from 1961-71.

Winnipeg, 1919 "Bloody Saturday"

Woodsworth, a former Baptist preacher, was involved in the social gospel movement, a vibrant form of clerical activism concerned with issues of social justice and poverty that sought to aid the poor in practical ways to improve their material lives, in addition to their spiritual ones. Tommy’s mother met Woodsworth during his ministry, and this connection with the Douglas family would be a critical link in Tommy’s future political career; Woodsworth would draw Tommy into the ranks of the CCF as an MP, and later urge him to run for the premiership of Saskatchewan.

After high school, Tommy apprenticed as a linotype printer for some years until he decided to enter the ministry, enrolling in the newly-established Baptist college at Brandon, Manitoba. Tommy excelled at his liturgical studies, as well as honing his already considerable oratorical and debating skills that he would put to such good use later, in the political arena. (Incidentally, Tommy was skilled in another ‘arena’—as an amateur boxer, holding several titles during his time in Brandon.) For five or six years after college he practiced as a Baptist minister in the small town of Weyburn, Saskatchewan where he and his new wife, Irma, embraced the social gospel principles of a practical Christianity, as they tried to address the myriad problems they saw in the lives of the rural poor. Tommy began his ministry just as the Great Depression was devastating lives and communities across the country. He learned valuable lessons on the need for community, goodwill and determination if adversity is to be faced, let alone overcome. Those years in Weyburn shaped Tommy’s outlook on ideals of social justice and equality, on issues of poverty, unionism, healthcare, the legal system, the role of government and so on. 

J.S. Woodsworth (1874-1942)

Encouraged by his family friend and mentor, and leader of the federal CCF Party, J.S. Woodsworth, Tommy ran for MP in the riding of Weyburn and won handily. Once in Ottawa, Tommy supported CCF efforts to prod the Liberals leftward in terms of creating more robust social security and welfare policies. The CCF’s “Regina Manifesto” of 1933 had an ambitious agenda for the party: pension reform, finance and banking regulation, children’s allowances, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, public ownership of key industries and universal healthcare. (The last proposal was something that had been talked about for decades and promoted by numerous political organizations, both locally and federally. The Liberals, for example, had promised some form of publicly-funded medical system for the nation in throne speeches since the 1920s but never got around to doing anything about it.)

 

M.J. Coldwell (1888-1974)

In 1942, the new CCF leader, M. J. Coldwell encouraged Tommy to switch to provincial politics and become a MLA in Saskatchewan for the provincial CCF, with the goal of becoming premier in the upcoming elections. As premier, Tommy might be able to accomplish for the people of Saskatchewan things the CCF struggled to achieve federally. By 1944, Tommy had successfully led the Saskatchewan CCF to a majority in the legislature and became premier of the province.

It should be said that the post-war years were not favourable to the CCF. The small, “social-democratic” party struggled in the face of the post-war communist scare and Cold War which tainted any group which had a whiff of communism about it, and in the 1950s the party’s fortunes fell ofn hard times, especially after the ruling Liberal Party had adopted several key CCF proposals into legislation including unemployment insurance, universal old age benefits and children's allowance. Without CCF and union pressure, it is unlikely the Liberals or Conservatives would have passed such extensive reforms to social welfare programs. 

The party was eventually restructured into the left-of-centre New Democratic Party by 1961. That was the year Tommy returned to federal politics, this time as the leader of the fledgling NDP. His five majority-win terms as premier of Saskatchewan (1944-61) were not, however, entirely unproductive.

One thing that stands out about Douglas’s premiership and the party he led in Saskatchewan was its emphasis on practicality, frugality, common-sense and long-term commitment. It should be noted that Tommy didn’t win his many legislative and election battles alone, either as an MLA, MP, party leader (or, for that matter, in a different ‘parliament’—as a Baptist minister.) He brought in people around him who shared his vision and could help bring it to fruition. His hard-nosed provincial treasure, Clarance Fines, is one example. Tommy kept a ferocious work pace, and over the decade and a half that he led the provincial CCF he managed to:

Create a publicly owned electrical utility

A public auto insurance

A number of crown corporations

Legislation promotion unionization

A Saskatchewan Bill of Rights that was a model for the later Canadian Charter of Rights

And a system of publicly funded hospital care.

 

“Medicare” was an initiative Tommy put into place during his first term in office. It began with hospital cost coverage but was expanded into a universal healthcare plan for the province by the end of his time as premier. Initially, he met with  a considerable headwind from the province’s medical doctors, who thought his proposal would take away their autonomy, lower their incomes and see an influx of unqualified practitioners. There were strikes and protests, and the struggle was watched carefully by the medical establishment across the continent and around the world.  Would Tommy Douglas’s “socialized’ medicine work for people? Would it be fair? It was a years-long publicity campaign and hard-nosed bargaining with vested interests, but most of what he wanted for the program was in place by the time he left provincial politics to take on his new role as leader of the federal New Democratic Party in Ottawa.

Tommy left provincial politics in 1961 with the final touches to his provincial plan still to be finalized. By then, more provinces were looking at his Saskatchewan experiment, adopting various components into their own healthcare systems. Pressure was mounting on the federal government, both the Pearson Liberals and minority Diefenbaker Conservatives to implement a broader, national plan. In parliament, Tommy as leader of the small, but vocal, NDP urged the various governments forward. And in 1966 the Liberals passed the Medical Care Act introducing universal medical coverage across the country.

There is a lot more to the history of Medicare in Canada, but I think there can be little doubt that without the decades-long work done by Tommy Douglas, in both his provincial and federal political careers, we would not have the healthcare system we have today. 

 

I’ve given just a snippet about the political battles and vested-interest wars, the name-calling (“Bolsheviks!”, “Nazis!”) and tug-of-wars that occurred in the post-war years around “socialized” medicine. Whether our system will last or not is a fair question. What pressures future economies and politics will bring to bear on health care in our country is anyone’s guess, but I think Tommy Douglas’s desire to enrich the common person’s life by ensuring them a reasonable base-line of healthcare is admirable, come what may.

 

Cheers, Jake.

 

 

 

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* I was interested to learn that the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, thousands of miles from Winnipeg, affected the fortunes of the city, in that a considerable amount of rail traffic to and from the west coast now went by cargo ship through the famous canal. This exacerbated the unemployment situation in Winnipeg, in addition to all the jobless vets returning home after the war and it created a growing climate of labour unrest that culminated in “Bloody Saturday’. [Another point to note here: Tommy was not a pacifist—he supported Canada’s entry into WWII for example. But when, in 1970 following the kidnapping and murder of diplomat Pierre LaPorte in Quebec by members of the radical separatist group, the FLQ, and the Trudeau government declaring martial law using the War Measures Act (WMA) which saw armed soldiers patrolling the streets of Montreal, as leader of the federal NDP, Tommy opposed the measure. Historians generally agree invoking the WMA was an unnecessary and excessive method of addressing the crisis. Tommy thought--correctly--that it would set a dangerous precedent, one that has uncomfortable echoes with recent events in Washington and in Canada, with what might be seen here as an over-reaction on the part of our Ministry of Public Safety to designate the (grantedly abhorrent) white-supremist group, the so-called “Proud Boys” as a “terrorist” organization. “Terrorism” as a description and a legal definition should be used carefully, and only in extreme circumstances. Surely there are enough laws on the books to keep such nutbar groups in check? I wonder what Tommy would think about such actions if he were around today? Was his opposition to the 1970 WMA in part based on his experiences during that May day in Winnipeg of 1919?]

  

**It is of some interest to note that both Woodsworth and Douglas explored as a possible venue for social activism the (now discredited) ‘science’ of eugenics. Douglas wrote a thesis paper for his Master of Arts degree titled, “The Problems of the Sub-Normal Family”, which promoted the forced sterilization of people with mental disorders and addictions. However, both Douglas and Woodsworth left behind such academic musings when they entered their ministries and later political careers.

This reminds me that the years after WWI were ones where a wide variety of social, political, and economic ideas and philosophies were debated and promoted. Some were good. Some had the most awful consequences. The following decades speak for themselves.

 

⁺ Reader’s of Hollywood gossip columns will be interested to learn that Tommy’s daughter, Shirley, would marry the Canadian-born film star Donald Sutherland. They would have a son, Kiefer, who is also a well-known actor today. Interestingly, Shirley’s Hollywood acting career (she would go on to having a successful one in Canada) was cut short when she was arrested in Los Angles and charged with “Conspiracy to Possess Unregistered Explosives” in connection with her anti-war activism and fund raising for a food bank run by the Black Panthers organization. She denied this, claiming the FBI was trying to frame her, in part because of her “socialist” father. She subsequently returned to Canada. (As an aside, Canadian security services—first the RCMP and later CSIS have kept an open file on Tommy for decades, the contents of which have yet to be made public. Yes, your tax dollars at work!) 

Of Shirley, Tommy said at the time: “I am proud that my daughter believes, as I do, that hungry children should be fed whether they are Black Panthers or white Republicans!”  

 

 

Vincent Lamb, Tommy Douglas. Penguin, Canada, 90 Eglington Ave E., Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2011.