Tommy Douglas | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Douglas,c. 1950s | |
| Leader of the New Democratic Party | |
| In office 3 August 1961 – 24 April 1971 | |
| Preceded by | Hazen Argue (as leader of theCCF) |
| Succeeded by | David Lewis |
| 7thPremier of Saskatchewan | |
| In office 10 July 1944 – 7 November 1961 | |
| Monarchs | |
| Lieutenant Governor | |
| Preceded by | William John Patterson |
| Succeeded by | Woodrow Lloyd |
| Leader of theSaskatchewan CCF | |
| In office 17 July 1942 – 3 November 1961 | |
| Preceded by | John Brockelbank |
| Succeeded by | Woodrow Lloyd |
| Member of Parliament forNanaimo—Cowichan—The Islands | |
| In office 10 February 1969 – 22 May 1979 | |
| Preceded by | Colin Cameron |
| Succeeded by | Riding dissolved |
| Member of Parliament forBurnaby—Coquitlam | |
| In office 22 October 1962 – 25 June 1968 | |
| Preceded by | Erhart Regier |
| Succeeded by | Riding dissolved |
| Member of theLegislative Assembly of Saskatchewan forWeyburn | |
| In office 15 March 1944 – 7 November 1961 | |
| Preceded by | George Crane |
| Succeeded by | Junior Staveley |
| Member of Parliament forWeyburn | |
| In office 14 October 1935 – 15 June 1944 | |
| Preceded by | Edward James Young |
| Succeeded by | Eric Bowness McKay |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Thomas Clement Douglas (1904-10-20)20 October 1904 Camelon, Falkirk, Scotland |
| Died | 24 February 1986(1986-02-24) (aged 81) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
| Resting place | Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa |
| Political party | CCF (1935–1961) NDP (1961–1986) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2, includingShirley Douglas |
| Relatives |
|
| Alma mater | |
| Profession | Baptistminister |
| Signature |  |
Thomas Clement DouglasPC CC SOM (20 October 1904 – 24 February 1986) was a Scottish-born Canadian politician who served as the seventhpremier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961 andleader of the New Democratic Party from 1961 to 1971. ABaptist minister, he was elected to theHouse of Commons of Canada in 1935 as a member of theCo-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). He leftfederal politics to become leader of theSaskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and then the seventh Premier of Saskatchewan. His government introduced the continent's firstsingle-payer,universal health care program.[1]
After setting up Saskatchewan's universal healthcare program, Douglas stepped down and ran to lead the newly formed federal New Democratic Party (NDP), the successor party of the national CCF. He was elected as its first federal leader in 1961. Although Douglas never led the party to government, through much of his tenure the party held the balance of power in the House of Commons. He was noted as being the main opposition to the imposition of theWar Measures Act during the 1970October Crisis. He resigned as leader the next year but remained as a Member of Parliament until 1979.
Douglas was awarded many honorary degrees, and a foundation was named for him and his political mentorM. J. Coldwell in 1971. In 1981, he was invested into theOrder of Canada, and he became a member of Canada'sprivy council in 1984, two years before his death. In 2004, aCBC Television program named Tommy Douglas "The Greatest Canadian", based on a Canada-wide, viewer-supported survey.
Thomas Clement Douglas was born in 1904 inFalkirk, the son of Annie (née Clement) and Thomas Douglas, aniron moulder who fought in theBoer War.[2] In 1910 at age 7,[3] his family immigrated to Canada, where they settled inWinnipeg.[4] Shortly before he left the United Kingdom, Douglas fell and injured his right knee.Osteomyelitis set in and he underwent a number of operations in Scotland in an attempt to cure the condition. Later in Winnipeg, the osteomyelitis flared up again, and Douglas was sent to hospital. Doctors there told his parents his leg would have to be amputated; however, a well-knownorthopedic surgeon took interest and agreed to treat him for free if his parents allowed medical students to observe. After several operations, Douglas's leg was saved. This experience convinced him that health care should be free to all. Many years later, Douglas told an interviewer, "I felt that no boy should have to depend either for his leg or his life upon the ability of his parents to raise enough money to bring a first-class surgeon to his bedside."[5]
DuringWorld War I (aged 12 to 15),[3] the family went back toGlasgow.[6] They returned to Winnipeg in late 1918, in time for Douglas to witness theWinnipeg general strike.[7] From a rooftop vantage point onMain Street, he witnessed the police charging the strikers with clubs and guns, and a streetcar being overturned and set on fire. He also witnessed theRoyal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) shoot and kill one of the workers. This incident influenced Douglas later in life by cementing his commitment to protect fundamental freedoms in a Bill of Rights when he was premier of Saskatchewan.[8]
In 1920, at the age of 15, Douglas began amateurboxing at theOne Big Union gym in Winnipeg.[9] Weighing 135 pounds (61 kg), he won the 1922 Lightweight Championship of Manitoba after a six-round fight.[9] Douglas sustained a broken nose, a loss of some teeth, and a strained hand and thumb.[9] He held the title the following year.[9]
In 1930, Douglas married Irma Dempsey, a music student atBrandon College. They had one daughter, actressShirley Douglas, and they later adopted a second daughter, Joan, who became a nurse. His daughter, Shirley, married actorDonald Sutherland; through Shirley,Kiefer Sutherland is Tommy Douglas’ grandson.[10]
Douglas startedelementary school in Winnipeg. He completed his elementary education after returning to Glasgow. He worked as a soap boy in a barber shop, rubbing lather into tough whiskers, then dropped out of high school at 13 after landing a job in acork factory. The owner offered to pay Douglas's way through night school so that he could learnPortuguese andSpanish, languages that would enable him to become a cork buyer. However, the family returned to Winnipeg when the war ended and Douglas entered the printing trades. He served a five-yearapprenticeship and worked as aLinotype operator finally acquiring hisjourneyman's papers, but decided to return to school to pursue his ambition to become anordained minister.[11]
In 1924, the 19-year-old Douglas enrolled at Brandon College, aBaptist school affiliated withMcMaster University, to finish high school and study theology. During his six years at the college, he was influenced by theSocial Gospel movement, which combined Christian principles with social reform.Liberal-minded professors at Brandon encouraged students to question theirfundamentalist religious beliefs. Christianity, they suggested, was just as concerned with the pursuit ofsocial justice as it was with the struggle for individual salvation. Douglas took a course insocialism at Brandon and studiedGreek philosophy.[12] He came first in his class during his first three years, then competed for gold medals in his last three with a newly arrived student namedStanley Knowles. Both later became ministers of religion and prominentleft-wing politicians.[13] Douglas was extremely active in extracurricular activities. Among other things, he became a champion debater, wrote for the school newspaper and participated in student government winning election as Senior Stick, or president of the student body, in his final year.[14]
Douglas financed his education at Brandon College by conducting Sunday services at several rural churches for 15 dollars a week. A shortage of ordained clergy forced smaller congregations to rely on student ministers. Douglas reported later that he preached sermons advocating social reform and helping the poor: "[T]he Bible is like abull fiddle ... you can play almost any tune you want on it." He added that his interest in social and economic questions led him to preach about "building a society and building institutions that would uplift mankind".[12] He also earned money delivering entertaining monologues and poetry recitations at church suppers and service club meetings for five dollars a performance.[15] During his second and third years at the college, he preached at aPresbyterian church inCarberry, Manitoba. There he met a farmer's daughter named Irma Dempsey who would later become his wife.[16]
Douglas graduated from Brandon College in 1930 and completed his Master of Arts degree in sociology at McMaster University in 1933. His thesis, "The Problems of the Subnormal Family", endorsedeugenics.[17] The thesis proposed a system that would have required couples seeking to marry to be certified as mentally and morally fit. Those deemed to be "subnormal", because of low intelligence, moral laxity, orvenereal disease would be sent to state farms or camps, while those judged to bementally defective or incurably diseased would besterilized.[18]
Douglas rarely mentioned his thesis later in his life, and his government never enacted eugenics policies, though two official reviews of Saskatchewan'smental health system recommended such a program when he became premier and minister of health. As premier, Douglas opposed the adoption of eugenics laws.[18] By the time Douglas took office in 1944, many people questioned eugenics due toNazi Germany's embrace of it in its effort to create a "master race".[19] Instead, Douglas implemented vocational training for the mentally handicapped and therapy for those suffering frommental disorders.[20][a]
In the summer of 1931, Douglas continued his studies insociology at theUniversity of Chicago. He never completed his PhD thesis but was deeply disturbed by his field work in theDepression-era "jungles" orhobo camps where about 75,000 transients sheltered in lean-tos venturing out by day to beg or to steal. Douglas interviewed men who once belonged to the American middle class—despondent bank clerks, lawyers and doctors. Douglas said later, "There were little soup kitchens run byThe Salvation Army and the churches ... In the first half-hour they'd be cleaned out. After that there was nothing ... It was impossible to describe the hopelessness."[24] Douglas was equally disturbed that members of theSocialist Party sat around quotingMarx andLenin, waiting for arevolution while refusing to help the destitute. Douglas said: "That experience soured me with absolutists ... I've no patience with people who want to sit back and talk about a blueprint for society and do nothing about it."[25]
Two months after Douglas graduated from Brandon College, he married Irma Dempsey, and the two moved to the town ofWeyburn, Saskatchewan, where he became an ordained minister at the Calvary Baptist Church.[26] Irma was 19, while Douglas was 25.[27] With the onset of theDepression, Douglas became a social activist and joined the newCo-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) political party. He was elected to theHouse of Commons of Canada in the1935 federal election.[28]
During the September 1939 special House of Commons debate on entering the war, Douglas, who had visited Nazi Germany in 1936 and was disgusted by what he saw, supported going to war against Hitler.[29] He was not a pacifist, unlike his party's leader,J. S. Woodsworth, and stated his reasons:
If you accept the completely absolutist position of the pacifist, then you are saying that you are prepared to allow someone else who has no such scruples to destroy all the values you've built up. This is what I used to argue with Mr. Woodsworth ... if you came to a choice between losing freedom of speech, religion, association, thought, and all the things that make life worth living, and resorting to force, you'd used force. What you have internationally is what you have within a nation. You must have law and order, and you must have the necessary military means to enforce that law and order.[30]
Douglas and Coldwell's position was eventually adopted by the CCF National Council, but they also did not admonish Woodsworth's pacifist stand, and allowed him to put it forward in the House.[30] Douglas assisted Woodsworth, during his leader's speech, by holding up the pages and turning them for him, even though he disagreed with him.[31] Woodsworth had suffered a stroke earlier in the year and he needed someone to hold his notes, and Douglas still held him in very high regard, and dutifully assisted his leader.[31]
After the outbreak of World War II, Douglas ran for re-election andwas re-elected as the MP for the Weyburn riding. He ran as a candidate in close association with Agnes McPhail and Dorise Nielsen.[32]
Douglas enlisted in the wartimeCanadian Army.[33] He volunteered for overseas service but then a medical examination turned up his old leg problems.[33] Douglas stayed behind in Canada, and the Grenadiers moved out to take up garrison duty in Hong Kong. If not for that ailment, he would likely have been with the regiment when its members were killed or captured atHong Kong in December 1941.[33]
Despite being a federal Member of Parliament and not yet anMLA, Douglas was elected the leader of theSaskatchewan CCF in 1942 after successfully challenging the incumbent leader,George Hara Williams, but did not resign from the House of Commons until 1 June 1944.[34] He led the CCF to power in 15 June[35]1944 provincial election, winning 47 of 52 seats in theLegislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, and thus forming the first social democratic government in not only Canada but all of North America.
Most of his government's pioneering innovations came about during its first term, including:
Douglas and the Saskatchewan CCF went on to win five straight majority victories in all subsequent Saskatchewan provincial elections up to 1960. As premier, Douglas attended thecoronation of Elizabeth II in June 1953.[36]
Douglas was the first head of any government in Canada to call for a constitutional bill of rights. Douglas did this at a federal-provincial conference in Quebec City in January 1950. No one in attendance at the conference supported him in this. Ten years later, PremierJean Lesage of Quebec joined with Douglas at a First Ministers' Conference in July 1960 in advocating for a constitutional bill of rights. Thus, respectable momentum was given to the idea that finally came to fruition, on 17 April 1982, with the proclamation of theCanadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[37]
Thanks to a booming postwar economy and the prudent financial management of provincial treasurerClarence Fines, the Douglas government slowly paid off the hugepublic debt left by the previousLiberal government, and created a budgetsurplus for the Saskatchewan government. Coupled with a federal government promise in 1959 to give even more tax money for medical care, this paved the way for Douglas's most notable achievement, the introduction ofuniversal health care legislation in 1961.[citation needed]
Douglas's number one concern was the creation ofMedicare. He introduced medical insurance reform in his first term, and gradually moved the province towards universal medicare near the end of his last term. In the summer of 1962, Saskatchewan became the centre of a hard-fought struggle between the provincial government, the North American medical establishment, and the province's physicians, who brought things to a halt with the 1962Saskatchewan doctors' strike. The doctors complained their best interests were not being met and feared a significant loss of income as well as government interference in medical care decisions even though Douglas had agreed that his government would pay the going rate for service that doctors charged. The medical establishment claimed that Douglas would import foreign doctors to make his plan work and used racist images to try to scare the public.[38]
Douglas is widely known as the father of Medicare, but the Saskatchewan universal program was finally launched by his successor,Woodrow Lloyd, in 1962. Douglas stepped down as premier and as a member of the legislature the previous year, to lead the newly formed federal successor to the CCF, theNew Democratic Party of Canada (NDP).[39]
The success of the province's public health care program was not lost on the federal government. Another Saskatchewan politician, newly elected Prime MinisterJohn Diefenbaker, decreed in 1958 that any province seeking to introduce a hospital plan would receive 50 cents on thedollar from the federal government. In 1962, Diefenbaker appointedJustice Emmett Hall—also of Saskatchewan, a noted jurist andSupreme Court Justice—to Chair aRoyal Commission on the national health system—the Royal Commission on Health Services. In 1964, Justice Hall recommended a nationwide adoption of Saskatchewan's model of public health insurance. In 1966, the Liberal minority government ofLester B. Pearson created such a program, with the federal government paying 50% of the province's costs. The adoption of public health care across Canada ended up being the work of three men with diverse political ideals – Douglas of the CCF, Diefenbaker of theProgressive Conservatives, and Pearson of theLiberals.[citation needed]
The1958 Canadian general election was a disaster for the CCF;[40] its caucus was reduced to eight, and party leaderM. J. Coldwell lost his own seat. The CCF executive knew that their party was dying and needed radical change.[41] The executive persuaded Coldwell to remain as leader,[42] but the party also needed a leader in the House of Commons to replace him, because he obviously was no longer a Member of Parliament. The CCFparliamentary caucus choseHazen Argue as its new leader in the House.[42] During the lead-up to the 1960 CCF convention, Argue was pressing Coldwell to step down; this leadership challenge jeopardized plans for an orderly transition to the new party that was being planned by the CCF and theCanadian Labour Congress. CCF national presidentDavid Lewis – who succeeded Coldwell as president in 1958, when the national chairman and national president positions were merged – and the rest of the new party's organizers opposed Argue's manoeuvres and wanted Douglas to be the new party's first leader.[43] To prevent their plans from being derailed, Lewis unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Argue not to force a vote at the convention on the question of the party's leadership, and there was a split between the parliamentary caucus and the party executive on the convention floor.[44] Coldwell stepped down as leader, and Argue replaced him, becoming the party's final national leader.[44]
As far back as 1941, Coldwell wanted Douglas to succeed him in leading the National CCF (at that time, it was obvious that Coldwell would be assuming the national leadership in the near future).[45] When the time came for the "New Party" to form, in 1961, Coldwell pressured Douglas to run for the leadership.[45] Coldwell did not trust Argue, and many in the CCF leadership thought that he was already having secret meetings with the Liberals with a view to a party merger.[45] Also, Coldwell and Douglas thought Lewis would not be a viable alternative to Argue because Lewis was not likely to defeat Argue; this was partly due to Lewis' lack of a parliamentary seat but also, and likely more importantly, because his role as party disciplinarian over the years had made him many enemies, enough to potentially prevent him from winning the leadership.[45] Douglas, after much consultation with Coldwell, Lewis, and his caucus, decided in June 1961 to reluctantly contest the leadership of the New Party.[45] He handily defeated Argue on 3 August 1961 at the firstNDP leadership convention in Ottawa, and became the new party's first leader.[46] Six months later, Argue crossed the floor and became a Liberal.[47][48]
Douglas resigned from provincial politics and sought election to the House of Commons in theriding ofRegina City in 1962, but was defeated byKen More. He was later elected in aby-election in the riding ofBurnaby—Coquitlam,British Columbia.[49]
Re-elected as MP for that riding in the1963 and1965 elections, Douglas lost the redistricted seat ofBurnaby—Seymour in the1968 federal election. He won a seat again in a 1969 by-election in the riding ofNanaimo—Cowichan—The Islands, following the death ofColin Cameron in 1968, and represented it until his retirement from electoral politics in 1979.[citation needed]
While the NDP did better in elections than its CCF predecessor, the party did not experience the breakthrough it had hoped for. Despite this, Douglas was greatly respected by party members and Canadians at large as the party wielded considerable influence during Lester Pearson's minority governments in the mid-1960s.[citation needed]
During the 1968 Federal Election, Douglas describedhomosexuality as a treatable illness by saying it was "a mental illness... [and] a psychiatric condition", as theAmerican Psychiatric Association. Rather than treating it as a criminal offence with imprisonment, Douglas believed it could be treated by psychiatrists and social workers. This view of homosexuality was mainstream at the time.[50] Nevertheless, Douglas would vote in favour ofBill C-150 in 1969, which decriminalized homosexuality.[51]
TheOctober Crisis put Douglas and David Lewis—now a Member of Parliament—on the "hotseat", with Lewis being the only NDP MP with any roots in Quebec.[52] He and Lewis were opposed to 16 October implementation of theWar Measures Act.[53] The act, enacted previously only for wartime purposes, imposed extreme limitations on civil liberties, and gave the police and military vastly expanded powers for arresting and detaining suspects, usually with little to no evidence required.[53] Although it was only meant to be used in Quebec, since it was federal legislation, it was in force throughout Canada. Some police services, from outside of Quebec, took advantage of it for their own purposes,[citation needed] which mostly had nothing even remotely related to the Quebec situation, as Lewis and Douglas suspected. During a second vote on 19 October, sixteen of the twenty members of the NDP parliamentary caucus voted against the implementation of theWar Measures Act in the House of Commons and four voted with the Liberal government.[54]
They took much grief for being the only parliamentarians to vote against it,[53] dropping to an approval rating of seven per cent in public opinion polls.[55] Lewis, speaking for the party at a press scrum that day: "The information we do have, showed a situation of criminal acts and criminal conspiracy in Quebec. But, there is no information that there was unintended, or apprehended, or planned insurrection, which alone, would justify invoking theWar Measures Act."[56] Douglas voiced similar criticism: "The government, I submit, is using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut."[55]
About five years later, some of the MPs who voted to implement it regretted doing so, and belatedly honoured Douglas and Lewis for their stand against it.[53] Progressive Conservative leaderRobert Stanfield went so far as to say "Quite frankly, I've admired Tommy Douglas and David Lewis, and those fellows in the NDP for having the courage to vote against that, although they took a lot of abuse at the time ... I don't brood about it. I'm not proud of it."[53]
Douglas resigned as NDP leader in 1971 but retained his seat in the House of Commons. Around the same time as theleadership convention held to replace him, he asked the party not to buy him an elaborate parting gift.[57] Instead, he and his friend and political mentor M. J. Coldwell were honoured by the party with the creation of theDouglas–Coldwell Foundation in 1971. He served as the NDP's energy critic under the new leader, David Lewis. He was re-elected in the riding of Nanaimo–Cowichan–The Islands in the1972 and1974 elections.[28] He retired from politics in 1979 and served on the board of directors ofHusky Oil, an Alberta oil and gas exploration company that had holdings in Saskatchewan.
In 1980, Douglas was awarded aDoctor of Laws degreehonoris causa byCarleton University in Ottawa. On 22 June 1981, Douglas was appointed to theOrder of Canada as a Companion for his service as a political leader, and innovator in public policy.[58] In 1985, he was appointed to theSaskatchewan Order of Merit[59] and Brandon University created a students' union building in honour of Douglas and his old friend,Stanley Knowles.[60]
In June 1984, Douglas was injured when he was struck by a bus, but he quickly recovered and on his 80th birthday he claimed toThe Globe and Mail that he usually walked up to five miles a day.[61] By this point in his life his memory was beginning to slow down and he stopped accepting speaking engagements but remained active in the Douglas–Coldwell Foundation. Later that year, on 30 November, he became a member of theQueen's Privy Council for Canada.[62][63]
Douglas died of cancer at the age of 81 on 24 February 1986, inOttawa and was buried atBeechwood Cemetery.[60][64][65][66]
In a national TV contest, conducted by theCanadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 2004, he was crowned "Greatest Canadian" by viewers in an online vote.[67]
Douglas Provincial Park near Saskatchewan'sLake Diefenbaker andQu'Appelle River Dam was named after him. The statueThe Greatest Canadian, created byLea Vivot, was erected in his hometown ofWeyburn in September 2010 and unveiled by his grandson Kiefer Sutherland.[68] A library located inBurnaby, British Columbia, was named in his honour and had its soft opening on 17 November 2009.[69] Several schools have been named after him, includingTommy Douglas Collegiate in Saskatoon, and a student housing co-op in Toronto, Campus Co-operative Residences, named one of their houses after him as well.[70] TheTommy Douglas Secondary School in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada named in his honour opened in February 2015.[71] Internationally the formerNational Labor College inSilver Spring, Maryland, was renamed the Tommy Douglas Center after its purchase by theAmalgamated Transit Union in 2014.[72] In March 2019, a plaque commemorating Douglas as the "Father of Medicare" was revealed in Regina, Saskatchewan.[73]
In the twoCBC Televisionmini-series aboutPierre Trudeau,Trudeau andTrudeau II: Maverick in the Making, Douglas is portrayed byEric Peterson. In the biography mini-series,Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story, which aired on 12 and 13 March 2006, also on CBC, Douglas was played byMichael Therriault. The movie was widely derided by critics as being historically inaccurate. Particularly, the movie's portrayal ofJames Gardiner, premier of Saskatchewan from the late 1920s to mid-1930s, was objected to by political historians and the Gardiner family itself. In response, the CBC consulted a "third party historian" to review the film and pulled it from future broadcasts, including halting all home and educational sales.[74]Prairie Giant was shown in Asia on theHallmark Channel on 11 and 12 June 2007.[74][75]
Douglas was also the subject of a 1986National Film Board of Canada documentaryTommy Douglas: Keeper of the Flame,[76] which received theGemini Award for Best Writing in a Documentary Program or Series. Douglas was mentioned in theMichael Moore documentarySicko, which compared the health care system in the United States with that ofCanada and other countries.[77]
In 2004, according to a THE CANADIANS encyclopedic series installation authored byBill Waiser,CBC viewers selected Tommy Douglas as "The Greatest Canadian".[78]
"The Cream Separator" is afable, written by Douglas, which aims to explain the inherentinjustices of the capitalist system as it relates to theagricultural sector by making the analogy that theupper class gets the cream, themiddle class gets the whole milk, and the farmers andindustrial workers get a watery substance that barely resembles milk.[79][80]
He was also known for his retelling of the fable of "Mouseland", which likens the majority of voters to mice, and how they either elect black or white cats as their politicians, but never their own mice: meaning that workers and their general interests were not being served by electing wealthy politicians from theLiberal or Conservative parties (black and white cats), and that only a party from their class (mice), originally the CCF, later the NDP, could serve their interests (mice).[81] Years later, his grandson, television actorKiefer Sutherland,[82] provided the introduction to a Mouseland animated video that used a Douglas Mouseland speech as its narration.[83]
| Year | Type | Party | Votes | Seats | Position | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | % | ±% | Total | ± | |||||
| 1944 | Provincial | Co-operative Commonwealth | 211,364 | 53.1% | +34.4% | 47 / 52 | +37 | Majority government | |
| 1948 | 236,900 | 47.6% | −5.5% | 31 / 52 | −16 | Majority government | |||
| 1952 | 291,705 | 54.1% | +6.5% | 42 / 53 | +11 | Majority government | |||
| 1956 | 249,634 | 45.3% | −8.8% | 36 / 53 | −6 | Majority government | |||
| 1960 | 276,846 | 40.8% | −4.5% | 37 / 54 | +1 | Majority government | |||
| 1962 | Federal | New Democratic | 1,044,754 | 13.57% | N/A | 19 / 265 | N/A | Fourth party | |
| 1963 | 1,044,701 | 13.22% | −0.35% | 17 / 265 | −2 | Fourth party | |||
| 1965 | 1,381,658 | 17.91% | +4.69% | 21 / 265 | +4 | Third party | |||
| 1968 | 1,378,263 | 16.96% | −0.95% | 22 / 264 | +1 | Third party | |||
| Year | Type | Riding | Party | Votes for Douglas | Result | Swing | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | % | P. | ±% | ||||||||
| 1934 | Provincial general | Weyburn | Farmer–Labour | 1,343 | 25.84% | 3rd | N/A | Lost | Gain | ||
| 1935 | Federal general | Weyburn | Co-operative Commonwealth | 7,280 | 45.00% | 1st | N/A | Elected | Gain | ||
| 1940 | 8,509 | 52.10% | 1st | +7.10% | Elected | Hold | |||||
| 1944 | Provincial general | Weyburn | Co-operative Commonwealth | 5,605 | 61.63% | 1st | N/A | Elected | Gain | ||
| 1948 | 6,273 | 56.31% | 1st | −5.32% | Elected | Hold | |||||
| 1952 | 6,020 | 59.86% | 1st | +3.55% | Elected | Hold | |||||
| 1956 | 4,930 | 48.17% | 1st | −11.69% | Elected | Hold | |||||
| 1960 | 5,054 | 48.43% | 1st | +0.26% | Elected | Hold | |||||
| 1962 | Federal general | Regina City | New Democratic | 12,736 | 28.94% | 2nd | N/A | Lost | Hold | ||
| 1962 | Federal by-election | Burnaby—Coquitlam | 16,313 | 50.43% | 1st | N/A | Elected | Hold | |||
| 1963 | Federal general | 19,067 | 46.37% | 1st | −4.06% | Elected | Hold | ||||
| 1965 | 22,553 | 52.92% | 1st | +6.55% | Elected | Hold | |||||
| 1968 | Burnaby—Seymour | 17,753 | 44.89% | 2nd | N/A | Lost | Gain | ||||
| 1969 | Federal by-election | Nanaimo—Cowichan —The Islands | 19,730 | 57.03% | 1st | N/A | Elected | Hold | |||
| 1972 | Federal general | 25,483 | 56.93% | 1st | −0.10% | Elected | Hold | ||||
 |
Douglas received honorary degrees from several universities, including
There are Tommy Douglasfonds atLibrary and Archives Canada[92] and theProvincial Archives of Saskatchewan.[93]
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Texts from Wikisource
Data from Wikidata
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