Tommy Douglas

By Ian McLeod

October 28, 2016

Tommy Douglas, a clergyman, embodied the social democratic movement, defined Canada's Medicare system, and served as Saskatchewan’s Premier for seventeen years.

The first leader of a socialist (CCF) government in Canada was the former Baptist minister, Tommy Douglas (1904 - 1986), in Saskatchewan, and the first leader of the federal CCF party was the former Methodist minister James Shaver Woodsworth In 1932, Douglas wrote to Woodsworth for advice on political action, and the older man urged Douglas to join the Saskatchewan Farmer Labour Party, which soon federated with its counterparts in other provinces to form the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) When he retired from Parliament in 1979, he embodied the social democratic movement; his speech to a dispirited NDP convention in 1983 is regarded as a moment of renewal for the party

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