The History Of Tommy Douglas's Universal Healthcare System

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We are lucky to live in a society in which access to healthcare is not on our list of things to worry about. However, this has not always been the case in Canada. Medicare in Canada was born in 1962 thanks to Tommy Douglas a former member of provincial parliament. While Tommy Douglas was born in Falkirk Scotland and only moved to Canada when he was six, he decided to join the Saskatchewan Labour Party in 1932 because he was inspired to help Canadians after witnessing the hardships they endured through the Great Depression. In 1942 Tommy Douglas who became the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, won the provincial election in Saskatchewan. He began to make a case to implement a universal health care system in the province because …show more content…

The free health care system Mr. Douglas implemented greatly helped families that were unable to afford healthcare but needed medical attention. Before medicare, medical assistance was a privilege that only people with money could have access to. The universal system meant that people without money could now also get the healthcare they desperately needed. Tommy Douglas has been commended in many ways for all that his is done for Canada as he should be. Although now Tommy Douglas’ efforts to bring free healthcare are appreciated and seen as a turning point in Canadian history, this was not always the case. In 1962, the start of free health care drove doctors in Saskatchewan to a 23 day strike in protest of this new program. They were worried they would be turned into civil servants and unable to make their own decisions about their patients. This strike also worried citizens as they were left without doctors. Not only did backlash come from the public and the doctors but also from political opponents. During the Saskatchewan election that he won, his opponents called him a communist and created many anti-medicare Tommy Douglas campaigns. These campaigns tried to suggest that Tommy douglas's plan would ruin the medical system. They said that people would not be able to choose their own doctors, there might be compulsory abortions and that the government might commit people to mental hospitals. The association representing doctors in Canada called medicare dictatorial and they promised never to accept