I have heard that Owebama wants to be known as the 'founder of American health care'. He as unknowingly stepped forward with this statement and identified himself as what he really is. A socialist. Why do I know this? Well grab a cuppa java and read on America .....
The man who is hailed as the founder of Canadian Health Care is Thomas Clement "Tommy" Douglas.
Thomas Clement "Tommy" Douglas, PC, CC, SOM (20 October 1904 – 24 February 1986) was a Scottish-born Baptist minister who became a prominent Canadian social democratic politician. As leader of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) from 1942 and the seventh Premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961, he led the first socialist government in North America and introduced universal public healthcare to Canada. When the CCF united with the Canadian Labour Congress to form the New Democratic Party, he was elected as its first federal leader and served in that post from 1961 to 1971. His grandson is actor Keifer Sutherland.
In 2004 Tommy was voted "The Greatest Canadian" of all time by my countrymen in a nationally televised contest. I voted for Wayne Gretzky myself because at least he never cost us any money but I shall continue my story ....
M.A. thesis on eugenics
Douglas graduated from Brandon College in 1930, and completed his
Master's degree (M.A.) in Sociology from McMaster University in 1933. His thesis entitled The Problems of the Subnormal Family endorsed
eugenics.
[11] [12] The thesis proposed a system that would have required couples seeking to marry to be certified as mentally and morally fit. Those deemed to be "subnormal" because of low intelligence, moral laxity or
venereal disease would be sent to state farms or camps while those judged to be
mentally defective or incurably diseased would be
sterilized.
[13]Douglas rarely mentioned his thesis later in his life and his government never enacted eugenics policies even though two official reviews of Saskatchewan's mental health system recommended such a program when he became premier and minister of health.
[13] By that time, many people questioned eugenics after
Nazi Germany had embraced it to create a "
master race".
[14]Instead, Douglas implemented vocational training for the mentally
handicapped and therapy for those suffering from mental disorders.
[15] (It may be noted that two Canadian provinces,
Alberta and
British Columbia, had eugenics legislation that imposed forced sterilization. Alberta's
law was first passed in 1928 while B.C. enacted its legislation in 1933.
[16] It was not until 1972 that both provinces repealed the legislation.)
[17]PhD research in Chicago
In the summer of 1931, Douglas continued his studies in sociology at the
University of Chicago. He never did complete his
PhD thesis, but was deeply disturbed by his field work in the
Depression-era "jungles" or
hobo camps where about 75,000 transients sheltered in
lean-to's venturing out by day to beg or to steal. Douglas interviewed men who once belonged to the American middle class --- despondent bank clerks, lawyers and doctors. "There were little soup kitchens run by the
Salvation Army and the churches," Douglas said later. "In the first half hour they'd be cleaned out. After that there was nothing...It was impossible to describe the hopelessness."
[18] Douglas was equally disturbed that members of the
Socialist Party sat around quoting
Marx and
Lenin, waiting for a revolution while refusing to help the destitute. "That experience soured me with absolutists," Douglas said. "I've no patience with people who want to sit back and talk about a blueprint for society and do nothing about it."
[19]From pulpit to politics
Two months after Douglas graduated from Brandon College, he married Irma Dempsey and the two moved to the small town of
Weyburn, Saskatchewan where he became an ordained minister at the Calvary Baptist Church.
[20] Irma was only 19, while Douglas was a young-looking 25.
[21] With the onset of the
Depression, Douglas became a social activist in Weyburn, and joined the new CCF organization. He was elected to the
Canadian House of Commons in the
1935 federal election.
Despite being a federal Member of Parliament and not yet an MLA, Douglas was elected the leader of the Saskatchewan CCF in 1942 but did not resign from the House of Commons until 1 June 1944.[22] He led the CCF to power in the 15 June, 1944 provincial election, winning 47 of 53 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, and thus forming the first democratic socialist government in not only Canada, but all of North America.Douglas and the Saskatchewan CCF then went on to win five straight majority victories in all subsequent Saskatchewan provincial elections up to 1960. Most of his government's pioneering innovations came about
during its first term, including:
- the creation of the publicly owned Saskatchewan Power Corp., successor to the Saskatchewan Electrical Power Commission, which began a long program of extending electrical service to isolated farms and
villages;
- the creation of Canada's first publicly owned automobile insurance service, the Saskatchewan Government Insurance Office;
- the creation of a large number of Crown Corporations, many of which competed with existing private sector interests;
- legislation that allowed the unionization of the public service;
- a program to offer free hospital care to all citizens—the first in Canada.
- passage of the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights, legislation that broke new ground as it protected both fundamental freedoms and equality rights against abuse not only by government
actors but also on the part of powerful private institutions and
persons. (The Saskatchewan Bill of Rights preceded the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations by 18 months).
Premier Douglas was the first head of any government in Canada to call for a constitutional bill of rights. This he did at a federal-provincial conference in Quebec City in January, 1950. No one in attendance at the conference supported him in this. Ten years later, Premier
Lesage of Quebec joined with Premier Douglas at a First Ministers' Conference in July, 1960, in advocating for a constitutional bill of rights. Thus, respectable momentum was given to the idea that finally came to fruition, on 17 April 1982, with the proclamation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
[23]Thanks to a booming postwar economy and the prudent financial management of provincial treasurer
Clarence Fines, the Douglas government slowly paid off the huge
public debt left by the previous
Liberal government, and created a budget
surplus for the Saskatchewan government. Coupled with a federal government
promise in 1959 to give even more money for medical care, this paved the way for Douglas's most notable achievement, the introduction of
universal medicare legislation in 1961.
Medicare
Douglas's number one concern was the creation of
Medicare. In the summer of 1962, Saskatchewan became the centre of a hard-fought struggle between the provincial government, the North American medical
establishment, and the province's physicians, who brought things to a halt with the 1962
Saskatchewan Doctors' Strike. The doctors believed their best interests were not being met and feared a significant loss of income as well as government interference in medical care decisions even though Douglas agreed that his government
would pay the going rate for service that doctors charged. The medical establishment claimed that Douglas would import foreign doctors to make his plan work and used racist images to try to scare the public. Their defenders have also argued that private or government medical insurance plans covered 60 to 63 percent of the Saskatchewan population before Medicare legislation was introduced.
An often forgotten political fact is that though Douglas is widely hailed as the father of Medicare, he had retired from his position as Saskatchewan's premier, turned over this job in 1961 to Woodrow Lloyd and took the leadership of the federal New Democratic Party.
In 1964, Justice Hall recommended the nationwide adoption of Saskatchewan's model of public health insurance. In 1966, the Liberal ( Democratic) minority government of
Lester B. Pearson created such a program, with the federal government paying 50% of the costs and the provinces the other half. So, the adoption of healthcare across Canada ended up being the work of three men with diverse political ideals - Tommy Douglas, John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Douglas
So here we had an avowed socialist share the wealth politician in the early Canadian political field but at least he never lied about his political party. He just never mentioned his prior teachings and actual beliefs. Had Canadians had the ability to find information about his background he never would have made it into the arena here. Canada at that time was an extremely Conservative country and the idea of eugenics which is no more than culture cleansing would have disgusted us. But we did not have the resources.
All who are concerned about Owebama's effort to seal all his records should be. Very concerned. To this Canadian it makes sense there is something you are not being allowed to see. But maybe that is not working anymore? Maybe you are seeing him and his administration for what they really are now.
All I can do is pray that you are. All I can ask is that you start waking everyone up. The very soul of your great Republic is under attack. They are laying a framework to destroy it just as they did here in Canada. There is more to this story and I shall add that blog later.
This was Canada's first step towards socialism. It was a big step. The rest that followed only added to the stupidity of what we allowed to happen.
