Canada's History "The Fight For Medicare:What if Tommy Douglas Had Failed?" (article)

I love history, especially Canadian history, so about a year and a half ago, I subscribed to "Canada's History." Quite quickly it became one of my favourite magazines. Normally, I don't blog about the magazines I read, but this particular issue stood out to me. On the front cover is a headline: "The Fight For Medicare: What if Tommy Douglas Had Failed?"

For those of my readers who don't know, Tommy Douglas was the Saskatchewan Premier who put Medicare--also known as public healthcare--on the table for his province in the early 1960s. What started in Saskatchewan in 1962 quickly spread across the country and became one of our most prized institutions. This article, theorizes what could have occurred if Medicare in Saskatchewan had been shot down in its early days. The author comes to the conclusion that Canadians would be left without public healthcare, relying instead on a private system with American insurance companies for coverage. With the signing Free Trade Agreement with the US in 1988, all hope of public healthcare would have been smashed.

What I didn't know, what this article explains, is that the moment public healthcare went into effect the doctors of Saskatchewan went on strike. They didn't want to government controlling their pay, or forcing them to take patients who could not afford to pay. It seems that what we now think of as "Canadian values" were not at first the values of Canadians in Saskatchewan. Protests broke out and it was only after many days, that the doctors went back to work and adjusted to the new state. The strike cost the life of a child, who died of meningitis in the backseat of his parents' car as they drove around trying to find a hospital who would take him. Ironic, that because the doctors refused to accept Medicare, it was prevented in its early days from serving its purpose--ensuring that all Canadians receive the healthcare they need.

I hadn't realized, that Medicare was met by so many Canadians, at first, with repulsion. It's odd, how when something new and good appears, people often view it as harmful. I'm also struck by how slight changes in history can alter the domestic environment of a nation. If the doctors in Saskatchewan had won their strike and Medicare had failed within the first month, nationwide public healthcare and the legacy of Tommy Douglas would be nothing but a short column in the back a history magazine that only the most die-hard history buff would read. Instead, public healthcare is a national institution in which we take pride; it gets the front cover.