Listen to Tommy's Speech

Saskatchewan NDP

Within 3 months after being elected in July 1944, the Douglas CCF government began providing full funding for treatment of mental illness, STD's and cancer. By January 1, 1945 the CCF government had issued government health care cards to all pensioners, all mothers on mother's allowance, and all disabled people in Saskatchewan entitling them to full medicare coverage including drugs. In 1945, the first full medicare program was established in the poorest region of Saskatchewan (the Swift Current area), providing each resident of that region with full coverage for medical services, hospital care, and dental care (up to age 16). This would provide the model for the province-wide CCF medicare plan.

Comprehensive hospitalization coverage for every resident of Saskatchewan across the province was introduced in 1946. Hospitals were built and would eventually provide 7 beds per 1000 population - the highest number per capita anywhere in North America. But the goal of having all medically needed services provided to all residents of Saskatchewan regardless of ability to pay could not be realized without federal financial assistance.

The federal government, under Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, finally (after decades of failed Liberal government promises) agreed to fund 50% of hospitalization costs on a province-by-province basis. This made full medicare financially possible for Saskatchewan. And so it was that the Douglas government, in 1961, introduced legislation to implement full medicare in Saskatchewan. In the fall of 1961, Tommy Douglas was called to lead the newly formed New Democratic Party in Parliament. Premier Woodrow Lloyd and Health Minister Allan Blakeney carried on the task of implementing the legislation. The fight with the doctors was on. Following resolution of a bitter 23 day doctors' strike in July 1962, the Saskatchewan NDP/CCF government under Premier Lloyd finally brought in comprehensive medicare for all residents of Saskatchewan.

An important milestone in the national medicare story was Diefenbaker's appointment, in 1961, of Justice Emmett Hall (also from Saskatchewan) to conduct a Royal Commission into medicare. The Hall Commission report in 1964 lay the foundation for a national medicare system founded on the principles of a universal, accessible, publicly administered system for all medically necessary treatment and care. Douglas called it the finest report in the English language on the subject of medicare. It proposed that the Saskatchewan medicare system be used as the model for Canada.

And it was. In December 1966, the Parliament of Canada, including all members of the NDP under leader Tommy Douglas, passed the federal medicare legislation that implemented full medicare across Canada. The Act became effective in 1968 and was fully implemented in all provinces by 1972.

The history of medicare is told by Tommy Douglas himself in this speech I recorded in Ottawa in late October 1979 (57 mb). It is playable on the Real Audio player which can be downloaded from here.

Andrew Mason

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