Tommy Douglas
Overview
 
Thomas Clement "Tommy" Douglas, (20 October 1904 – 24 February 1986) was a Scottish-born Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...

 minister who became a prominent Canadian social democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...

 politician. As leader of the Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....

 Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...

 (CCF) from 1942 and the seventh Premier of Saskatchewan
Premier of Saskatchewan
The Premier of Saskatchewan is the first minister for the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. They are the province's head of government and de facto chief executive....

 from 1944 to 1961, he led the first social democratic government in North America and introduced single payer, universal healthcare to Canada. When the CCF united with the Canadian Labour Congress
Canadian Labour Congress
The Canadian Labour Congress, or CLC is a national trade union centre, the central labour body in English Canada to which most Canadian labour unions are affiliated.- Formation :...

 to form the New Democratic Party
New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...

, Douglas was elected as its first federal leader and served in that post from 1961 to 1971.
Quotations

In Washington they have their hawks and doves and in Ottawa we have our parrots.

In response to Canadians policy on the Vietnam War, House of Commons, "Debates", 13 February 1967

I am still a little fellow.Mr. Tucker is big enough to swallow me, but if he did, he would be the strangest man in the world. He would have more brains in his stomach than he does in his head.

To Liberal leader of the time Walter Tucker, quoted "Star Pheonix" July 14 1947

One year ago men could be seen riding the rods on freight trains across Canada. Today hundreds are in His Majesty’s uniform. Most of us know some of these young men personally. Theses men are going to fight for a society that could not even give them a job. What do we propose to do with them when they come back on the rods? God forbid.

Statement in a debate (23 May 1940)

I went around to the little schoolhouses, talking like a professor, explaining our platform. We were lucky if the collection gave us enough for gas to get to the next place. We encouraged questions, and people asked us if it was true we were going to take their farms, like the Soviets in Russia, and did we believe in God.

On his earliest political campainging, quoted in Tommy Douglas (1983) by Doris French Shackleton, p. 68

If ever we needed in this country to adopt a new attitude towards homosexuality, this is the time. Instead of treating it as a crime, and driving it underground, we ought to recognize it for what it is: it's a mental illness, it's a psychiatric condition which ought to be treated sympathetically by psychiatrists and social workers.

Said in the 1968 Leaders debate on the proposed Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968-69|Omnibus bill to decriminalize homosexuality

 
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