Tommy Douglas and the Quest for Medicare in Canada

Dr. Gregory Marchildon, Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and leading public historian of Canadian health care, will discuss his new book Tommy Douglas and the Quest for Medicare in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2024). The book tells the unlikely story of how a poverty-stricken Canadian province became the birthplace of one of the world’s most admired universal health care systems. The talk will take place on Thursday, September 18, at 5 p.m. in Wehr Physics, Room 141.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Marchildon is the Founding Director of the North American Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (NAO). A scholar-practitioner, he has extensive experience in establishing and working in national and international research and policy networks. His research focusses on the history of public policy, with a particular emphasis on comparative health systems and policies and universal health coverage. Marchildon has worked in three professions in his lifetime: lawyer (criminal prosecution and defense); academic (London School of Economics, Johns Hopkins University, University of Regina, and University of Toronto); and public servant (Deputy Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Deputy Minister to the Premier and Cabin Secretary in Saskatchewan as well as Executive Director of the Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada). He has also done consulting for governments and international organizations on cabinet systems and decision-making, public policy capacity building and health system restructuring. He is a member of the Order of Canada and a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

About the Book:

Tommy Douglas and the Quest for Medicare in Canada examines the history of universal health coverage – commonly known as Medicare – in Canada. How and why was universal health coverage implemented so early in a poverty-stricken province in Canada? Why was its design so faithfully replicated in the national standards that ultimately shaped Medicare across the rest of Canada? Seeking to answer these questions, Gregory Marchildon explores the history of universal health care through the life of Canadian politician Tommy Douglas, identifying the pivotal moments and decisions that led to the establishment of Medicare in Canada.

The book traces the origins of Medicare back to the 1930s Depression and its devastating impact on the Prairie populations. Marchildon examines how Tommy Douglas and a new generation of reformers, radicalized by the Depression, prioritized socialized health care. The book reveals how, as the provincial party leader, Douglas leveraged support from both local and external allies to rapidly implement universal hospital insurance and lay the groundwork for a new health system.

More about the book can be found here: https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9781487560430

Host or Publisher MU Political Science Department