How Did Tommy Douglass Contribute To Canada

It is the cold season, and you’re coughing very excessively. You have an important test coming up on Monday, and nothing seems to be working for you. You’ve drunk many glasses of orange juice; you’ve eaten many Halls; you’ve taken lemon and honey. So you to go to the clinic, and the doctor prescribed some medicine to take care of a cough. You pay for the medicine, and you leave. That’s all. A monetary transaction from your wages between you and the doctor does not happen. And you have Tommy Douglas to thank for this. Tommy Douglas is the greatest Canadian of all time, because of his many contributions to the great Canadian way of life, like introduction of pensions for the elderly, introduction of universally free healthcare, created crown

When Douglas was a young Minister, during the Depression, he saw a lot of death from diseases and sicknesses, that could easily have been prevented if the people affected had enough money to afford healthcare. He himself had to bury two people that were close to him and the church he was employed to. He saw what the clutches of poverty did to people who were gravely sick. Even before his universal healthcare topic, he and his government had already begun providing “full funding of mental illnesses, STD’s and cancer(dufourlaw.com). Years after on November 19, 1961, Saskatchewan Medical Insurance Act, was made a part of the legislation a couple weeks after Tommy Douglas had left the leadership of the party. Mind you, the idea all stemmed majorly from him, and the new CCF premier only signed it into effect. This replaced private insurances, and individuals had to pay $12 per year on premiums, and families $24. With this, everybody in the province paid for the healthcare of each other, and they were “reassured that a terrible illness in the family wouldn’t lead to bankruptcy”(tommydouglas.ca). John Diefenbaker, the Prime Minister at the time, already expressed interest in this, and his successor, Lester B Pearson would later pass the law, to enable universal healthcare all over Canada,“under all NDP members under NDP leader Tommy Douglas”(dufourlaw.com), in 1966. Tommy Douglas played very crucial roles in all of these

He was the first leader of a form of government in Canada that always consulted an advisory committee from his party(tommydouglas.ca). He also created the Economic Advisory and Planning Board which was a central cabinet committee, that oversaw monetary and budgetary matters. He always went over decisions with the advisory committee, and they always carefully went through different candidates for cabinet ministers. He also made other changes like the concept of cabinet responsibility, which was created so other members of the cabinet always had to seek advice on their ideas, and that all ideas had to be discussed with other members first before becoming an Act. This inspired many political reforms in systems in the governments, which still are in effect today, in places like the Senate and House of