The Honourable Thomas Clement Douglas, PC , CC , SOM , MA , LL.D (October 20, 1904 – February 24, 1986) was a Scottish-born Canadian Baptist minister until becoming a democratic socialist politician.

When leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) from 1942 and the eighth Premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961, he led the number one socialist government around Northerly America & introduced universal public medicare to Canada. After a CCF united at a Canadian Labour Congress to form the New Democratic Party, he was elected as its number one federal leader & served from either 1961 to 1971. He is warmly remembered for his folksy wit & oratory by owning which he expressed his steadfast idealism, exemplified by his fable of Mouseland. He died at age 81 around 1986.

Within 2004, he was voted "The Greatest Canadian" of all period around the nationally televised contest organized per Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

He is the father of actress Shirley Douglas, and a granddad of actor Kiefer Sutherland.

A mini series is presently existence filmed entitled The Tommy Douglas Story, & is scheduled to become freed around January 2006.

Early life and activism
Douglas was innate around 1904 in Falkirk, Scotland. Around 1910, his family immigrated to Canada, around which it settled in Winnipeg. As a kid, Douglas wounded his leg & developed osteomyelitis. a leg would keep around been amputated were it non for a doctor world health organization saw the problem as a adept subject to thatch his students. This rooted Douglas's belief that health care should exist as loose to tons. In the period of World War I, the personal returned to Glasgow. It come back to Winnipeg inside 1919, in time for Douglas to witness a Winnipeg General Strike.

Around 1924, Douglas attended Brandon College to study for the ministry. When there, Douglas was influenced per social gospel movement, which combined Christian principles with social reform. He graduated from either Brandon College inside 1930, and completed his Master's degree (MA) in Sociology from McMaster University in 1933. As a result this, he became a minister at the Calvary Baptist Church in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. Sustaining a onset of the Depression, Douglas became the social militant within Weyburn, joined a recently CCF person, & became a freemason. He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1935 federal election.

Premier of Saskatchewan
Douglas was an active Parliamentarian, however he besides maintained an interest inside provincial politics & became a leader of the Saskatchewan CCF in 1942. He led a CCF to power in the June 15, 1944 provincial election, taking 47 of 52 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan.

When World War II continued through Douglas's foremost term when premier, the Government of Canada continued its policy of discrimination against Japanese Canadians. Additionally to the Japanese Canadian internment, the government deported just about 4,000 Japanese immigrants & Canadians of Japanese descent back to war-war-worn Japan. Within 1945, in response to the portable letter written to him, Douglas revealed that he did non object to the deportation of victims Japanese Canadians world health organization spoke their native tongue. Douglas was a womb-to-tomb defender of civil liberties & would late deplore a way that the Japanese Canadians got been treated. A 1945 letter revealing his feelings towards Japanese Canadians remains an incomprehensible aberration.

Douglas & a Saskatchewan CCF so won 5 straight majority triumph. Virtually all of his government's pioneering innovations go on when you took its foremost term, including: a creation of the publicly-owned utilities: SaskTel and SaskPower; a creation of Canada's 1st publicly owned automobile insurance service, a Saskatchewan Government Insurance Office; legislation that allowed a unionisation of the public service; a program to offer loose hospitalisation to everthing citizens—the number 1 inside Canada. legislation that outlawed discrimination according to gender & race (this preceded a adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations by 18 months).

Across careful fiscal management, a Douglas government slowly paid off a vast debt left by the last Liberal government, and created the budget surplus for the Saskatchewan government. This paved a way for Douglas's virtually all notable accomplishment, a introduction of universal medicare legislation in 1961.

Medicare
Douglas's first concern was a creation of Medicare. Saskatchewan became a centre of a firm-fought struggle between a food & drug administration, the Northerly Our contries medical establishment, and the province's md, world health organization brought items to a head by owning the doctors' strike. the doctors believed their better interests were non existence met, & it despised a important loss of income. Despite these reversal, Douglas managed to resolve a strike, clearing a way for Medicare within Saskatchewan. Numerous got doubted a feasibilty of Medicare, however Douglas showed Canada how else it can function—that the doctors can be brought onside, & that across careful fiscal planning, plenty money can be placed aside to install a universal rules. Proving it was conceivable on the provincial shell cleared the way for a national Medicare program.

When Douglwhen is typically described as a "father of medicare" in Canada, the Saskatchewan program was eventually launched by his successor, Woodrow Lloyd, in 1962. When seeing a profits of the Saskatchewan experiment, Prime Minister Lester Pearson and the more provinces agreed to the creation of the national medicare program inside 1967.

Federal NDP leader
Whenever a CCF allied by using a Canadian Labour Congress to form the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961, Douglas defeated Hazen Argue at the number 1 NDP leadership convention and became the fresh person's number 1 leader. Douglas resigned from either provincial politics & sought election to the Home of Commons in the riding of Regina, Saskatchewan in 1962, but was defeated. He was late elected inside the by-election in the riding of Burnaby–Coquitlam, British Columbia.

Re-elected to it riding in the 1963 and 1965 elections, Douglas lost it in the 1968 federal election. He won the seat once agawithin in the 1968 by-election in the riding of Nanaimo–Cowichan–The Islands, British Columbia.

When a NDP did better inside elections than its predecessor, a person did non own household budget a breakthrough it got hoped for. Despite this, Douglwhen was greatly respected by person members & Canadians at prominent as a person wielded considerable influence when you took a minority governments of Lester Pearson. Around 1970, Douglas and a NDP took a controversial however principled could have against the implementation of the War Measures Act during the October Crisis.

Late career and retirement
Within 1962, Douglas received an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Saskatchewan. He resigned when NDP leader around 1971, however saved his seat in the Home of Commons. He served when a NDP's energy critic under a fresh leader, David Lewis. He was re-elected in the riding of Nanaimo–Cowichan–A Islands in the 1972 and 1974 elections.

He retired from either politics around 1979. Around 1981, he was mass produced the Companion of the Order of Canada. Within 1985, he was awarded a Saskatchewan Order of Merit. In the mid 1980s, Brandon University created a students' union building in honour of Douglas & his old friend, Stanley Knowles.

He became the member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada in 1984. Inside 1998, he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Douglas died of cancer in 1986 at the age of 81 around Ottawa.

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