On July 10th, 1944, Tommy Douglas was sworn in as Premier of Saskatchewan. His CCF government was the first social democratic government in North America.
Tommy would continue to serve the people of Saskatchewan for the next 17 years, pioneering many progressive innovations, including the creation of the publicly owned Saskatchewan Power Corp.; the creation of Canada's first publicly owned automotive insurance service; legislation that allowed the unionization of the public service; the passage of the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights; and, of course, the continent's first single-payer, universal health care program.
To mark this anniversary, the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation is proud to announce the upcoming release of The Story of Mouseland. After years of encouragement and a year of hard work, the DCF’s Mouseland renewal project is almost complete and is scheduled to be released in August.
The Story of Mouseland was a story first told by Clarence Gillis, the first CCF MP ever elected east of Manitoba. It was later and most famously told by Tommy Douglas.
This political fable expressed the view that the history of the Canadian political system was flawed in offering voters a false choice between two parties, neither of which represented their interests. In Mouseland, the mice voted in black cats, and then they found out how hard life was. Then they voted in the white cats. Life remained hard! The story goes on, until one mouse gets an idea: maybe mice should run their government!
In the coming weeks, we will be putting the final touches on the movie. Stay tuned! You will soon hear Tommy’s great story-telling skills with brand new visuals. We’ve used the classic stop motion technique to bring this classic story back to life. By taking multiple still pictures of the character, moving it slightly in between each picture, you create the illusion of movement when those pictures are displayed quickly in succession. Since these characters (which are made of wire, wood, fabric, foam and paper mache) must be moved or changed only slightly in between every single still picture, classic stop motion animation is a lot of work. But believe us, it is worth seeing and will make the Story of Mouseland timeless for generations to come! Oh, and did we mention, it will also be available en français!
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Are you interested in helping us promote education and research in social democracy? Join the DCF today!
Coming soon: the story of a place called Mouseland, where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.
It is with the heaviest hearts today upon learning of former BC Premier John Horgan’s passing.
We have some very important information to share and it is my sincere desire that you will read through to the end of this post and learn about an important project we’ve undertaken to bring awareness to a major problem our country is facing in our healthcare system, and to help bring proposed solutions to the attention of policy makers in our work to defend public healthcare.
From all of us at the Foundation, we wish you a joyful Pride month filled with celebration and love. As we celebrate queer love, joy and success we must also take the time to reflect on the history that has led us to where we are today.
