1962:

With the Saskatchewan Doctors’ Strike only a few days old, the Vancouver Province’s editorial page is filled to the brim with articles denouncing the “tragically controversial” principle of universal health care. In addition to meeting with heated resistance from the newspaper, the plan also faces great animosity from a number of politicians, and even doctors themselves.

“The doctors would,” the article states, “oppose any national or provincial plan like the controversial one in Saskatchewan, on the grounds that it places medical direction in too great a degree under political control[...] Why, they ask, should BC have a compulsory, government-sponsored medicare plan when only 11 per cent of the people can honestly claim to need it? And this does not mean that the doctors want to ignore this unfortunate 11 per cent. They believe the provincial government could pay the medical insurance premiums for this group at far less cost than the price to taxpayers of so-called ‘free’ medical service for everyone.”

Since 1946, provincial governments have subsidized hospital stays for a majority of their populations, (with the federal government taking 50% of the financial responsibility) however, Universal Healthcare, of the type enacted in Saskatchewan by Premier Tommy Douglas, is a relatively new idea. Proponents of universal healthcare, including provincial NDP Leader Robert Strachan, accuse the Canadian Medical Association of “establishing a political action fund”, and working in concert with the U.S. medical profession to campaign against a national medicare program.

However, despite the CMA’s heavy campaigning, universal healthcare will be introduced to every province in the country in 1966, and, despite some snags throughout the 1970s, will remain free to all Canadians.

 

IMAGE: Doctor and Patient at the BC Cancer Institute, circa 1940s. Image Courtesy of the Vancouver Archives.