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Along with JS Woodsworth, first CCF Leader, Tommy Douglas stands as one of the most important heroes of our movement. Douglas was the first social democratic leader of a government on this continent. He was the first leader of the federal NDP. He was the father of medicare in Canada. It is hard to imagine a figure more important to the development of the NDP and to social democracy in Canada. History has been kind to Tommy Douglas, though he never became Prime Minister, and he is as highly regarded by the general public now as ever before.
Tommy Douglas was a little man with a big heart. In his 44 years as an elected representative, his loving work on behalf of the individual men and women of Canada changed forever the nature of our society. Tommy Douglas fought for Canadians. His achievements are indeed legendary.
Short in stature, Douglas lacked neither brains nor courage. Throughout his long political career, he built a reputation for a devastating wit and oratory, and universal respect for always standing by what he believed, no matter how unpopular.
Douglas was born on October 20, 1904, in Falkirk, Scotland. His family emigrated to Canada in 1910, settling in Winnipeg. They returned to Glasgow during the first world war, and once again moved to Winnipeg when Douglas was 14.
He started work then as an apprentice printer, working for the Winnipeg Free Press and the Grain Trade News. Earlier, at 13 and still in Glasgow, he had worked in a whiskey factory.
By the age of 19, he not only had earned his journeyman's card as a printer, but also was already gaining a reputation as a Baptist preacher at his first church in Austin, Manitoba. It was here that he became friends with J.S. Woodsworth, a Methodist preacher and the future CCF leader.
He earned a bachelor's degree at Brandon College, where he was a classmate of Stanley Knowles, and did post-graduate work at McMaster University, earning an MA.
In 1934, Douglas, a Baptist Church Minister in Weyburn, made his first venture into electoral politics by running unsuccessfully as a provincial candidate for the Farmer-Labour Party in Saskatchewan.
While he was deliberating over the next move, the superintendent of the Baptist Church in Western Canada told him he had to choose between politics or the church – he couldn't have both.
That ultimatum did not prevent Douglas from running again in the 1935 federal election, as the CCF candidate in the federal constituency of Weyburn, when he became one of the first CCF members to sit in the House of Commons. He would serve as a MP for nine years.
In 1941, he was elected President of the Saskatchewan CCF provincial party, and became provincial leader when George Williams went overseas during the Second World War. With an election seeming imminent by 1942, Douglas activated a shadow cabinet of party committees and organized sitting MLAs under C.M. Fines.
Douglas resigned his federal seat to lead the Saskatchewan CCF and, in the memorable election of June 15, 1944 he led the party to a massive victory, winning 47 of 53 seats. At the age of 39, he became head of the first social democratic government in North America.
As Premier of Saskatchewan he presided over the birth of public hospitalization and medicare. Through his five terms as Premier, Douglas pioneered reforms which made Saskatchewan society both progressive and prosperous.
More than 100 bills, 72 of them aimed at social or economic reform, were passed during the CCF's first year in power. By the end of two years, they had removed the sales tax from food and meals and managed to reduce the provincial debt by $20 million.
New departments were established which reflected the government's priorities. These included the new Deparment of Co-operatives, the Department of Labour and the Department of Social Welfare. To pay for the new departments, all the CCF cabinet ministers took a 28 per cent pay cut.
In 1944, pensioners were granted free medical, hospital and dental services, and the treatment of diseases such as cancer, tuberculosis, mental illness and venereal disease was made free for all.
In 1947, Douglas introduced universal hospitalization at a fee of $5 per year per person. "It is paid out of the treasury. Instead of the burden of those hospital bills falling on sick people, it is spread over all the people," Douglas said. In 1959, twelve years later, when the province's finances seemed to him to be strong enough, Douglas announced the coming of the medicare plan. It would be universal, pre-paid, publicly administered, provide high quality care, including preventive care, and be accepted by both providers and receivers of the medical service.
A Crown Corporation Act opened the way to such achievements as provincial air and bus lines. The Timber Board took control of lumbering, so the industry could prosper without destroying the forests. Later, fish and fur marketing boards were established.
However, no Crown corporation had as big an impact during the Douglas years than the Saskatchewan Power Corporation. Prior to the Douglas Administration, only 300 rural households had electrical power. By 1964, 65,000 farm households had been hooked up to the electrical grid built by SaskPower.
SaskTel provided affordable, quality and near universal phone access across the province.
The CCF introduced the Trade Union Act, which made collective bargaining mandatory and extended the rights of civil servants. The Act was described by Walter Reuther as "the most progressive piece of labour legislation on the continent." Other labour legislation set standards for workers' compensation, minimum wages, mandatory holidays and a labour relations board. Union membership rose 118 per cent in just four years.
Building on the 1944 campaign slogan of Humanity First, the first CCF budget devoted 70 per cent of its expenditures to health, welfare and education. School districts were enlarged to a more efficient size; teachers' salaries were raised; the University of Saskatchewan was expanded to include a medical college.
Industrial development and economic diversification were major goals of the Douglas government. The Administration helped private investors to develop potash mining, a steel mill and pipeline company, as well as encouraging development in oil and gas. When Douglas took power, 80 per cent of the province's GDP was generated by agriculture. By 1957, agriculture accounted for only 35 per cent of economic activity, even though a million more acres of farm land were under production.
"If ever a politician had neglected his own constituency, it was I," wrote Douglas in an article prepared shortly before his death. "I had told my people before they nominated me that if I was going to be any use to the party, I'd have to spend 95 percent of my time on the road."
Tommy Douglas political achievements included his most memorable, North America's first government-run medical care insurance plan; also public automobile insurance, rural electrification, and a host of other innovative social programs.
In his writings, Douglas says he was labeled as "a rather dangerous radical in the community of Weyburn, stirring up the unemployed to ask for more money and sticking my nose into places where it was none of my business." But Tommy Douglas felt it was his business.
When he died on February 24, 1986, at the age of 81, Douglas was heralded as "a man who did good deeds in a naughty world."
In 2004, nearly twenty years after his death, Tommy Douglas was voted “The Greatest Canadian” in a national CBC Television contest. Among the nominees who Douglas edged out for the title were Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau and Terry Fox.
Tommy Douglas
Under Tommy Douglas, the government of Saskatchewan brought about the following groundbreaking measures:
The Honourable Major James William Coldwell, PC , CC (December 2, 1888–August 25, 1974), usually known as M.J., was a Canadian social democratic politician, and leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation party from 1942 to 1960. Major was his first name, not a military title.
Coldwell was born in England. He moved to Canada in 1910 and became a school administrator in Regina, Saskatchewan. He became known nationally as a leader of teacher's associations from 1924 until 1934. He was elected to the city council in Regina and developed links with labour and farmers organizations.
When the Saskatchewan Farmer-Labour Party was formed in 1932, Coldwell was chosen to be its first leader. The party fought the 1934 provincial election under Coldwell's leadership, and won five seats in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, making it the official opposition to the Liberal government. Coldwell was defeated in his election bid. After the election, the party affiliated itself with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and became the Saskatchewan CCF.
In the 1935 federal election, Coldwell was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Rosetown-Biggar. He split with CCF leader J.S. Woodsworth when World War II broke out in 1939. Woodsworth, a pacifist, opposed the war effort, while Coldwell and the rest of the CCF caucus supported the war. When Woodsworth resigned as CCF leader in 1942, shortly before his death, Coldwell was unanimously elected the party's new leader. He lead the party through five general elections.
Coldwell had a moderating influence on party policy, and in 1956, the party passed the Winnipeg Declaration as a statement of party principles to replace the more radical Regina Manifesto. After an upsurge of support for the party immediately after World War II, the party embarked on a long decline during the Cold War.
In the 1958 election, Coldwell lost his seat, and the party was reduced to a rump of eight MPs. Coldwell retired as party leader in 1960.
He was unenthusiastic about the movement to merge the CCF with the Canadian Labour Congress and create a "New Party", but he joined the New Democratic Party at its founding, and remained an elder statesman in the party until his death in 1974.
In 1967, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 1964 he became a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.
John Gilbert Layton was born in Montreal and raised in nearby Hudson, Quebec. The son of Doris and Progressive Conservative MP Robert Layton, Jack was the first of four children. When his parents were looking to increase attendance at their Sunday school, 14-year-old Jack helped to change up the programming and filled the room weekly with young people from across Hudson.
Even as a teenager, Jack was stepping up. He was elected student council president at Hudson High School, In 1969, he was elected the prime minister of the Quebec Youth Parliament, and at York University, where he completed his master’s degree and later his Ph.D., Jack headed up the graduate students’ association and got involved in municipal politics.
Jack’s commitment to equity and appreciation for what others are going through, grew stronger while at McGill. He was inspired by the political philosopher and McGill professor, Charles Taylor and was drawn to get more active in a variety of causes, including defence of the French language and access to housing for all. Jack would go on to teach at X University, York University, and the University of Toronto.
Jack married his high school sweetheart Sally Halford. During their 14-year marriage, the two had two children, Mike and Sarah.
After hearing a speech by Tommy Douglas denouncing Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s use of the War Measures Act during the October Crisis as an extreme overreach, Jack’s decision to join the NDP was sealed. It was 1970 and Jack signed his first NDP membership card.
Never afraid of a challenge, Jack was first elected to the Toronto City Council in a long-shot campaign in 1982. He would spend most of the next two decades standing out as a strong voice and a recognized advocate in Toronto municipal politics with a particular focus on housing, protecting the environment and fighting for everyday people. Layton was elected as the President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in 2001.
In 1985, Jack met Olivia Chow. As he said, “I fell in love with Olivia in four nanoseconds. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into but I knew I was smitten from day one.” They were married in 1988, and from the beginning – in activism, municipal and federal politics, and in everything else – the two were inseparable and spoke every day, regardless of where their busy lives took them.
Recognizing that too much of the work being done to end violence against women, put the onus on women themselves, in 1991, Jack co-founded the White Ribbon Campaign to encourage men to take responsibility for ending male violence against women.
In 2003, Jack was elected leader of the federal NDP on the first ballot. In the next federal election, he became MP for Toronto–Danforth. Over the next four elections, under Jack’s leadership, the party quadrupled its national vote and grew from 13 MPs to 103 - the largest New Democrat caucus in the party’s history.
Day in and day out, he showed a rare passion, determination and skill. Both a fighter and bridge-builder, he never lost sight of why he was involved in public life. People across Canada noticed and he turned the New Democrats into a real political alternative, reshaping Parliament and giving hope to millions of Canadians.
In 2005, Jack used his influence in the minority parliament to rewrite Paul Martin’s budget. He successfully diverted $4.6-billion from corporate tax giveaways to important priorities like affordable housing, education, foreign aid and public transit.
Jack consistently found ways to work across party lines to get results for people – on job creation, affordability, health care wait times and fighting climate change. In 2008, Layton was instrumental in bringing about the Prime Minister’s apology to survivors of Indian Residential Schools.
True to his roots, during his time as leader, Jack made the people of Quebec a priority. In 2011, Jack lead a New Democrat breakthrough in Quebec and, with 59 Quebec MPs, Jack’s team emerged as a force for Canadian unity.
During the 2011 election, the work that Jack had been doing on the ground – connecting with people – for years paid off. People believed in him, trusted his vision and, following the election, Jack formed the largest opposition party in over three decades and became the first leader of the federal NDP to form the Official opposition.
On July 25, 2011, Jack announced he would be taking a temporary leave of absence from his post to fight a newly diagnosed cancer.
Before passing away on August 22, 2011, Jack left a letter to Canadians. He encouraged all of us to have dreams that last longer than a lifetime and closed with an inspiring message.
My friends, love is better than anger.
Hope is better than fear.
Optimism is better than despair.
So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.
And we’ll change the world.
The Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation is Canada's charitable home for social democracy and its many leaders. It was founded nearly 50 years ago by the "Greatest Canadian" and the father of medicare in Canada, Tommy Douglas.
If you were asked to name three great leaders of Canadian Social Democracy, it is likely that Tommy Douglas, Major James Coldwell and Jack Layton would come to mind. Their life-long contributions to social democracy in Canada and around the globe are well celebrated.
A dream they shared was to build an independent progressive charitable think tank unbound to any other organization or political party.
In November 1971 this dream became a reality with the establishment of the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation with Tommy Douglas as its founding President. In the words of Tommy Douglas, the Foundation would: "provoke discussion…to keep the movements on the left-whether the co-operative movement, the trade union movement or the political movement- from getting in a rut."
In 1987, our organization was strengthened through a merger with J.S. Woodsworth's own charity; the Woodsworth Memorial Foundation.
Through new research and educational programs, the Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation aspires to teach Canadians about our founder's legacies and their important contributions to our country and modern-day society. Our goal is to advance the work and ideas of Tommy Douglas and his vision for a Canada where no person is left behind.
As of January 2022, the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation was renamed the Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation, with Jack Layton being named a Founder of the charity.
The Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation is a Canadian registered charity. All donations will be tax receipted.
